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 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD ERNEST HAMILTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "The First Seven Divisions," "The Soul of Ulster," 
 
 WITH MAP 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 
 681, FIFTH AVENUE
 
 Printed in Great Britain
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Con Bacagh's visit to Henry VIII. His wars with Shane Preference for his 
 illegitimate son Ferdoragh Ferdoragh's parentage His character 
 Con Bacagh's reformation Renewed wars between Con Bacagh, Fer- 
 doragh and Shane A famine follows Croft removes Con Bacagh to Dublin 
 Duel between Ferdoragh and Shane Ignominious flight of Shane Alex- 
 ander McDonnell of the Isles and his sons Croft attempts to expel them 
 from Ulster Attack on Rathlin Island Croft's successive failures St. Leger 
 returns as deputy He renews the attempts against the Scots Sidney 
 exterminates the Rathlin Island population War between Culoagh 
 O'Donnell and his father, Manus Battle of Ballybofey Hugh O'Donnell 
 and Shane combine at Carricklea Their defeat. 
 
 CON BACAGH, the son of Con, of the race of Neil Nayg Yarragh, 
 visited King Henry VIII. at his English Court in 1543, and 
 came away with the ignominious title of Earl of Tyrone, under- 
 taking in its place to drop that of O'Neil, which was of Royal 
 pretensions. 
 
 Con Bacagh's visit was not wholly one of choice. He went, 
 so to speak, on his knees. Two years earlier he and Manus 
 O'Donnell had swooped down upon the Pale, burned Navan 
 and Ardee, and turned Ulsterwards again, carrying with them 
 immense booty, so immense, in fact, that Lord Louth, follow- 
 ing hot on their heels, overtook them at Ballahoe, on the out- 
 skirts of Monaghan, and so expedited their return that the 
 booty had to be abandoned. The sacrilege of the invasion, 
 however, had to be punished, and in 1541 St. Leger, the 
 successor to Lord Grey, three times invaded Tyrone, and at 
 the third attempt brought Con Bacagh to his knees. 
 
 The old Chief's downfall had been helped to a great extent 
 by the co-operation with the English of McMahon, Magennis, 
 O'Hanlon, and Con Bacagh's recent but fickle ally, Manus 
 O'Donnell. O'Rourke, O'Byrne and McQuillin subsequently 
 
 2O5814O
 
 6 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 added their submission, and the whole coterie of chieftains 
 unequivocally renounced the Pope, with the solitary exception 
 of O 'Byrne, who sturdily declined. The chiefs were chastised 
 with a very silken scourge. It was felt that Con Bacagh was 
 the real delinquent, and that, if only his good conduct could be 
 forced or bribed, the rest would soon settle down as good 
 domestic landowners. In pursuance of this view, all that was 
 demanded of them by way of an adjunct to their submission, 
 was that they should pay rent to the Crown, hold their lands 
 by Knight's service, forswear Irish usages and exactions, more 
 especially the evil practices of Coyne, Livery and Bonaght, 
 and live in peace with their neighbours. In the meanwhile 
 Con Bacagh as has been said went to the English Court, 
 not for execution or even imprisonment, but so that he should 
 see with his own eyes how things were done among the great 
 and enlightened, and carry back with him a lasting impression 
 of Court life as it should be. A fitting ceremonial accompanied 
 his reception. 
 
 The Ulster Prince, attired in a splendid robe valued at 65, 
 and presented to him by the King, was led into the Queen's 
 chamber at Greenwich by the Earls of Oxford and Hertford. 
 The room was hung with cloth of Arras and luxuriously strewn 
 with rushes. The Viscount Lisle bore O'Neil's sword. O'Neil 
 then knelt on the rushes, while the King girt on his sword, hung 
 round his neck a gold chain valued at 60, and handed him his 
 patent as Earl of Tyrone, together with 100 marks as pocket- 
 money. O'Neil then made a suitable reply in Irish, and the 
 whole party adjourned to the more congenial function of a 
 banquet, where tongues were doubtless still further loosened. 
 
 The main idea at the back of the ceremony seems to have 
 been that, with the putting on of his gold chain and English 
 title, O'Neil would absorb a proper measure of civilization, 
 which he would, in due course, transmit to his people in Ulster, 
 and so reclaim them from their savage ways. This proved, 
 in fact, to be a very vain hope. If the splendour with which 
 he saw himself surrounded made any impression on O'Neil, 
 it certainly made none on his methods of life. In Ireland he 
 was held to have lowered himself. He had surrendered the 
 royal title of O'Neil for that of a mere subject. It was con- 
 sidered a degradation in place of being an honour. O'Neil 
 himself no doubt shared this view, but he was too wise to say so.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER ? 
 
 He looked on his^acceptance of the despised title as an empty 
 concession to the strange whims of the English, and he had no 
 intention that it should for one moment alter the traditional 
 customs of his race, or interfere with his prescriptive right as 
 the O'Neil to torture and hang his own subjects and pillage and 
 plunder his neighbours. 
 
 By a curious decree of fate, however, it was ordained that the 
 ceremony of investiture at Greenwich despised though it 
 was at the time was to prove the first cause of many years of 
 strife and bloodshed among the various branches of the O'Neil 
 family. The trouble arose in the following way. Con Bacagh's 
 favourite son, Ferdoragh, was created Baron of Dungannon 
 at the same time that his father was made an. earl, and the 
 succession to the earldom was vested in Ferdoragh and his 
 heirs male. The arrangement was one hi which all the elements 
 of future trouble were contained, for Ferdoragh had an elder 
 brother, who was the father of Tirlough Braselagh, and Con 
 Bacagh had an avowedly legitimate son named Shane by Mary 
 O'Neil of Clandeboye. Shane claimed that Ferdoragh was not 
 only illegitimate, but was probably not Con Bacagh's son at 
 all, but the son of a blacksmith at Dundalk (as unquestionably 
 he ought to have been), adding that Con Bacagh was " so much 
 of a gentleman that he never refused any son that was put upon 
 him." It is to be assumed, therefore, that the parentage of 
 Ferdoragh, on the father's side, was a matter of some uncer- 
 tainty, but that Con Bacagh was quite willing to accept the 
 charge, being possibly influenced by his personal preference 
 for Ferdoragh to the less attractive Shane. 
 
 Of the first Baron's character we know little, for he was 
 early murdered by the outraged Shane, but what little we do 
 know is good. He was a century ahead of Con Bacagh in culture 
 and intelligence, and his tendencies seem to have been progres- 
 sive rather than reactionary. Shane, on the other hand, was not 
 only a repulsive character in himself, but a reactionary of the 
 worst type, and, had Ferdoragh only lived and succeeded as 
 O'Neil, the history of Ulster might have been very different. 
 
 After the Greenwich ceremony the new Earl of Tyrone 
 returned to Ulster, and for the next two years conducted himself 
 in a highly exemplary manner, even to the extent of assisting 
 Henry in his French wars with a contingent of ninety Kerne, 
 whose elemental methods of warfare drew forth indignant pro-
 
 8 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 tests from the King of France. At the end of this period, how- 
 ever, signs of restlessness began to manifest themselves in the 
 newly -made Earl. While outwardly conforming to the first, 
 second and third of the conditions imposed upon him, Con 
 Bacagh soon made it clear that the condition which stipulated 
 that he should live in peace with his neighbours was one which 
 no O'Neil could be expected to take seriously. Con Bacagh 
 did not take it seriously ; after a decent pretence of amity, 
 he and his sons started fighting, or, to put it more accurately, 
 devastating one another's lands so persistently that the country 
 was soon brought to very great distress. Sir Thomas Cusack, 
 the Chancellor, wrote in 1551 that " the country of Tyrone is 
 brought through war of the Earl and his sons (one of themselves 
 against other) to such extreme misery as there is not ten ploughs 
 in all Tyrone. Hundreds this last year and this summer died 
 in the field through famine." This tragedy was deliberately 
 brought about by the Earl himself, who professed such 
 deep-rooted contempt for ploughs and similar implements 
 that he threatened to take very drastic measures to prevent 
 their use on his lands.* Sir James Croft, who succeeded St. 
 Leger in 1551, joined with the Baron of Dungannon in a praise- 
 worthy attempt to stay the famine and restore prosperity by 
 sowing wheat, but the Earl out of sheer hatred of innovations 
 broke up the ploughs and burned any crops he could find. 
 " For this is the chief cause of the famine," the victims told 
 Croft, " that the Earl did destroy their corn for bringing new 
 things to his country other than have been used before. And 
 what the Earl will promise now within two hours after he will 
 not abide by the same." So the Earl and his wife Mary were 
 removed by Croft to Dublin, not as a punishment, but in order 
 to give his country a chance of recovering itself under the more 
 enlightened administration of his son Ferdoragh, Baron of 
 Dungannon. 
 
 The fight in Tyrone was now narrowed to a duel for the suc- 
 cession between Ferdoragh and Shane, the former having sub- 
 stantial Government support in the person of Sir Nicholas 
 Bagenal, whom Croft had now appointed Marshal of Ireland. 
 Ferdoragh and Bagenal, whose headquarters were at Newry, 
 worked well together, and as far as eastern Ulster was concerned 
 they proved too strong a combination for Shane, but the latter 
 
 * Carew MSS., 1552, 200.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 9 
 
 had the north and west wholly under his dominion. The 
 Baron's ambition, however, aimed at more than the mere lord- 
 ship of the east, and in the autumn of 1551 he determined 
 to set the seal of his authority on Shane's country by the usual 
 methods of fire and sword. With this natural object in view, 
 he and the Marshal organized a predatory expedition into the 
 Dungannon district. For two days they destroyed property 
 without hindrance from any ; on the third day there was a 
 chance encounter with the enemy, but the meeting appears to 
 have been as unexpected as it certainly was unwelcome to one 
 of the parties concerned. Bagenal described the incident as 
 follows : " The Baron of Dungannon, with four horsemen in 
 his company, being far before their fellows, found Shane upon a 
 hill in his country, environed by woods and accompanied with 
 eighteen horsemen and sixty Kerne, and perceiving the Baron 
 with so small a company to be there, said : ' If the King were 
 there where thou art he were mine ; ' the Baron, coming for- 
 ward, said : ' I am but the King's man, and that thou shalt 
 well know,' then, broching his horse with the spurs, thrust into 
 the press. Shane fled with his company to the woods. The 
 Baron followed, and having no opportunity of striking him 
 neither with spear nor sword, the woods were so thick, as he 
 gripped to have taken him by the neck a bough in the pass 
 put the Baron from him and almost from his own horse. So 
 Shane escaped afoot."* 
 
 The Baron returned from this remarkable exploit (in which 
 four horsemen charged and routed seventy-eight warriors 
 favourably situated on a hill) with four captured horses and 
 three hundred cattle. It is only fair to Shane's reputation to 
 point out that the respective numbers engaged can only have 
 been furnished by the Baron himself, and that his estimate of 
 Shane's retinue was possibly a generous one. 
 
 Croft's administration was mainly conspicuous for his con- 
 sistent support of Dungannon against Shane, and for his abortive 
 attempt to rid north-east Ulster of the Scotch settlement, 
 which now extended in a thin line along the coast from the Bann 
 to Glenarm. This young colony, destined in time to play such 
 an important part in the history of Ireland, had been started 
 about the year 1520 by the Highland Chieftain, Alex. 
 McDonald of the Isles, who left six sons by Catherine Macquoin 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. III., 56. Bagenal to Croft, Oct. 27th, 1551.
 
 10 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 of Ardna-murchan. At the time of Croft's administration 
 these six sons, James, Alexander Oge (or Junior), Donald, Angus, 
 Colla and Sorley Boy, were all alive, though not continuously 
 resident in Ulster. Colla, the youngest but one, was the 
 officially appointed representative of the clan in Ireland, the 
 other brothers spending the bulk of their time in Cantyre, but 
 always ready to come over if and when required. 
 
 This invasion from the West Highlands was looked upon 
 in Government circles with anything but favour, and one of 
 Croft's first acts was to organize an expedition to the north- 
 east coast of Antrim, with a view to expelling or annihilating 
 the intruders. Feeling themselves powerless to face the 
 Deputy's formidable array on the mainland, the McDonalds 
 prudently withdrew to Rathlin Island, some six miles off the 
 coast, where they were presently attacked by the Government 
 forces, under Sir Ralph Bagenal and Captain Cuffe, augmented 
 by a strong force of the Ulster Irish and by two fine men-of-war. 
 The combined forces, however, accomplished nothing of lasting 
 consequence. The men-of war pounded Colla' s new Castle of 
 Keanbaan to pieces, but a landing was never effected, and 
 Bagenal finally withdrew in discomfiture, with the loss of a 
 good many of his men. No sooner was his back turned than 
 Colla started rebuilding his battered Castle, which, when 
 finished, he rechristened Donanany (presumably after the castle 
 of that name on the mainland), and where he lived in peace 
 with Evelyn Mcquillin, his wife, till his death occurred in 
 1558.* 
 
 A second expedition against the Scots, six months later, 
 commanded by Bagenal and the Baron of Dungannon, met 
 with no better success. Nothing of the slightest military value 
 was accomplished, and two hundred of the Government men 
 according to the statement of the Four Masters perished from 
 one cause or another in the course of the undertaking. Croft 
 was naturally annoyed by this reverse, but not discouraged, 
 and towards the close of the year 1552 he launched a third 
 expedition into north Antrim. Dungannon again accompanied 
 the Marshal, but he imprudently allowed his party to get 
 separated from that of Bagenal, and Shane, who was hovering 
 on the flank, was not slow to take advantage of such a golden 
 opportunity for avenging himself on his half-brother for the 
 
 * Hill's " McDonnells of Antrim."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER ll 
 
 loss of his four horses and three hundred cows. On this occasion 
 it is to be assumed that the Baron and his men were either 
 more heavily outnumbered than they had been on the occasion 
 of Dungannon's remarkable feat in the autumn of 1551, or 
 else that their prowess was less conspicuous, for the fact stands 
 out that they were signally defeated with considerable loss of 
 life. There is no reason to suppose that this intervention of 
 Shane in matters which did not strictly concern him in any sense 
 aimed at helping the Scotch. It was purely a personal matter 
 between himself and his half-brother, but the effect undoubtedly 
 was to render Croft's third and last effort against the Scots as 
 abortive as the previous two. 
 
 In 1553 St. Leger, returning to Ireland for the third time, 
 succeeded Croft, and, pursuing the same policy as his pre- 
 decessors, made a great effort to expel the Mcdonalds, both from 
 the Route and Glynns (Lower and Upper Dunluce and Gary), 
 and from the Ards, where they had also temporarily established 
 a footing ; but at the end of a six weeks' campaign he was forced 
 to admit failure and had to return to Dublin. 
 
 St. Leger' s administration was not a success. Like all Irish 
 deputies, he was chiefly hated for his good deeds. After three 
 years of inglorious administration, he returned, deeply dis- 
 couraged, to England, and was succeeded by Lord Fitzwalter, 
 better known as the Earl of Sussex. Sussex got together the 
 most formidable force yet assembled in Ireland, and, marching 
 north with caution and deliberation, reached Glenarm on 
 the twenty-fourth day after leaving Dublin. This time the 
 Mcdonalds did not await events, but, yielding to force majeure, 
 crossed the water to Scotland. Sussex, eager to justify his 
 expedition and its cost, expended his energies on all the destruct- 
 ible property he could find on the mainland, while Sir Henry 
 Sidney crossed to Rathlin Island, and there exterminated the 
 entire population.* The Government force then returned to 
 Dublin, and the Mcdonalds returned from Cantyre to the Route. 
 
 All the Government's efforts of the past five years had been 
 directed against the Mcdonalds, and the ruling clans of the 
 centre and west of Ulster had during this period taken advantage 
 
 * Carew MSS. Sidney to Walsingliam, March 1st, 1583 ; also see Carew 
 MSS. 1557, 359. The numbers killed in this first massacre at Kathlin Island 
 are not given, and the whole incident is dismissed very briefly, from which 
 it is reasonable to assume that the population on the island at the time was so 
 small that its destruction was not considered worth recording.
 
 12 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 of their immunity from outside interference to devastate one 
 another to their hearts' content. Shane O'Neil's main object 
 at the time was to depose his father, Con Bacagh, from the throne 
 of Ulster, which he considered that he could fill far more satis- 
 factorily himself. In the neighbouring county of Tyrconnell 
 (Donegal) Calvagh O'Donnell was very similarly engaged in an 
 attempt to depose his own father Manus. To aid him in this 
 unfilial operation he had enlisted the co-operation of O'Cahan 
 of Coleraine on the understanding that, if he defeated his father 
 and became the O'Donnell, he would use all the fighting forces 
 of Tyrconnell in support of O'Cahan' s claim for independence 
 from the overlordship of Shane. This compact sealed, the 
 two new allies advanced in martial array into Tyrconnell, but 
 unfortunately for their mutual projects were heavily defeated 
 by Manus at Ballybofey. 
 
 Calvagh, however, was not to be discouraged. He attributed 
 his defeat less to bad generalship than to the inferior quality of 
 his fighting material, and, with a view to putting this right, he 
 sailed for Scotland and there hired a force with which he 
 returned to Loch Foyle in 1555. As a preliminary measure he 
 started by destroying the two Inishowen strongholds of New- 
 castle and Ellaugh, and then, passing on to Rossreagh, inflicted 
 a decisive defeat on his father, whom he took prisoner. 
 
 Calvagh does not appear to have treated old Manus badly, 
 but he shut him up in Lifford Castle, where he remained till he 
 died in 1564. Manus is given a good character, both by the 
 Four Masters and by St. Leger, who describes him as " a sober, 
 well-inclined man." He was a patron and student of literature. 
 
 Manus' s deposition was a curious repetition of family history, 
 for he himself had behaved in an exactly similar way to his 
 own father, Hugh Duv, nor did the analogy end there, for 
 just as Manus after dispossessing his father had to fight his 
 three brothers, so did Calvagh now have to fight his own half- 
 brother Hugh, who naturally disputed with him his claim to the 
 chiefry. Manus had hanged his eldest brother John, and Hugh 
 no doubt bearing this in mind, and having no wish to make 
 the analogy with the past too exact invoked the aid of Shane 
 O'Neil against Calvagh and his imported Scotch army. 
 
 Shane, in spite of the fact that he was married to Calvagh' s 
 daughter Margaret, gladly took up Hugh's quarrel, doubtless 
 scenting an opportunity for carrying out his pet scheme of
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 18 
 
 extending his rule to the far western shore of Tyrconnell, or 
 Donegal, as we may for better convenience call it. Shane got 
 together a large army and joined forces with Hugh at Carricklea, 
 just above the junction of the rivers Finn and Mourne. Here 
 the allies pitched their camp, and, in order to celebrate the occa- 
 sion, caroused so freely and imprudently that during a very dark 
 and rainy night they were surprised by Calvagh and his mer- 
 cenaries and completely routed. Shane himself as on the 
 occasion of his personal encounter with Dungannon displayed 
 the greatest cowardice, and, without attempting to fight, crept 
 out of the back of his tent and ran down to the river Finn, 
 which he crossed. He then followed its left bank up for some 
 miles, recrossed it and then the river Derg, which brought him 
 to Termanomongan. Here he procured a horse, on which he 
 got safely away to Clogher. Pursuit does not appear to have 
 been very vigorous, for the victorious army fell on the wines 
 which the vanquished had left and completed the interrupted 
 carouse. The spoil taken was considerable. We are told that 
 Calvagh' s son Con got for his own share no less than eighty 
 horses, including Shane's famous charger, " Son of the Eagle."* 
 Shane eventually made his way back to his castle at Benburb 
 on the Blackwater, where he consoled himself for his defeat by 
 Calvagh by brutally ill-treating Calvagh's daughter, who had 
 the misfortune to be his wife. For the best part of a year he 
 remained politically quiet, but in the following year, 1558, he 
 settled for ever the vexed question of succession, by waylaying 
 and murdering the Baron of Dungannon in the neighbourhood 
 of Armagh. The old Earl of Tyrone (Con Bacagh), on learning 
 the news, realized that unless he took prompt measures for 
 his own safety he was likely to follow in the wake of his son, 
 and he accordingly lost no time in getting back to Dublin and 
 the friendly protection of the English Government. He died 
 the following year at the ripe age of seventy-five. He had few 
 good points, and the way in which he deliberately produced a 
 famine among his own people in order to emphasize his hatred 
 of English agricultural improvements, stamps him as the very 
 primitive man and very callous tyrant. His last earthly utter- 
 ance was a curse which he invoked on any and all of his posterity 
 who should learn English, sow wheat, or build a stone house.| 
 
 * Four Masters. f Cal. State Papers, Dec. 7th, 1598.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Capture of Culoagh O'Donnell by Shane Shane's cruel treatment of Culoagh 
 and his wife Sussex appointed Lord Lieutenant His Northern expedition 
 Overthrow of his raiding party Sussex retaliates Shane's submission 
 His visit to Elizabeth Murder of Brian McBaron Tirlough Luineach 
 Shane's return to Ireland He violates all the terms of his submission His 
 raid on Donegal Unreasonable attitude of Ulster Chiefs The McDonnell 
 settlement in the Route Cusack's support of Shane Elizabeth and the 
 Ulster Scots. 
 
 OHANE O' NEIL'S triumph in Tyrone was now complete, 
 vl} and he lost no time in having himself formally invested 
 as the O'Neil at Tullahogue, with the usual unpleasant rites 
 associated with the ceremony. Further triumphs, however, 
 were in store for him. Calvagh O'Donnell was still at war 
 with his half-brother Hugh, and in the spring of 1561 he sent 
 an expedition to attack Caffar O'Donnell (a brother of Hugh) 
 at his island stronghold at Lough Veagh in West Donegal. 
 Calvagh himself very prudently remained behind with his wife 
 at the monastery of Killdonnell, on Lough Swilly, twelve miles 
 from the scene of action. Here according to the Four Masters 
 he pleasantly spent his time in carousing till May 14th, when 
 he was rudely awakened by the sudden and unwelcome appear- 
 ance of Shane, who had received information through some of 
 the O'Donnells of the unprotected state of their chief, and who 
 lost no time in arriving on the scene with a strong band of 
 followers. 
 
 Calvagh and his wife could, of course, put up no defence, and 
 were carried off into captivity, where they were both very 
 cruelly used. Calvagh was fettered with gyves round his neck 
 and ankles, so arranged that he could neither stand nor sit. His 
 sufferings, according to his own statement, were excruciating. 
 In order to extract from him the secret of his treasure, Shane 
 had the gyves strained so tight that " the blood did run down on 
 either side of mine irons, in so much that I did wish after death 
 
 14
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 15 
 
 a thousand times."* His wife, a Maclean, and the widow of 
 the Earl of Argyle, became Shane's mistress by night, and during 
 the day was chained by the wrist to a small boy so as to prevent 
 her escape. | 
 
 The object of Shane's support of Hugh O'Donnell against 
 Calvagh was now made clear, for having safely disposed of 
 the latter he proclaimed himself Lord of Donegal, and, indeed, 
 of all Ulster from Drogheda to the sea. On the strength of this 
 piratical extension of his territory he made a formal applica- 
 tion to the Crown for the title of Earl of Ulster, but it need 
 scarcely be said without success. 
 
 Old Manus was still alive and the official O'Donnell, and by 
 Calvagh' s capture the old chief once more regained his liberty, 
 but he was too feeble and broken in health to resist, or even to 
 resent, Shane's cool annexation of his lands. His sons Hugh 
 and Caffar resented it most acutely, but were not strong enough 
 to resist. They were both feeble creatures, totally devoid of 
 spirit or military capacity. Shane's insolence in formally 
 demanding the title of Earl of Ulster had the effect of arousing 
 the full resentment of Elizabeth, who had just succeeded her 
 sister to the throne. The title was a royal one and scrupulously 
 reserved for Royalty, and Shane's claim to it pointed to a sense 
 of growing power which it was felt must be promptly curbed. 
 Sussex was sent back to Ireland with the full title of Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, and with orders to bring the Northern Chief to his 
 senses by one means or another. The selection of Sussex for 
 this duty was not a happy one. He had proved a failure before, 
 and he was destined to prove no less of a failure on this occa- 
 sion. Entirely destitute of military genius, his only idea of 
 warfare lay in the destruction of the enemy's country. His 
 one good point was his energy, but even this was misdirected. 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant lost no time in getting to work. Before 
 the end of 1561 he had pushed north nearly as far as Armagh 
 without encountering any resistance. Making Armagh his 
 headquarters, he sent out a raiding party into Shane's terri- 
 tory to the north-west, which succeeded in collecting a formid- 
 able drove of cattle, with which the raiding party began to make 
 its way back in triumph to Armagh. Shane, however, was hot 
 on their heels with 300 Scots and 200 Gallowglasses, and, 
 choosing a moment when the raiders had relaxed their watch, 
 
 * Calvagh to Elizabeth, Oct. 29th, 1564. f Bagwell II., 75.
 
 16 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 he launched a fierce and unexpected attack on the rear of the 
 column. The English, completely taken by surprise, were 
 thrown into hopeless confusion ; 50 were killed, 50 more 
 wounded, and all the cattle returned whence they had come.* 
 The distress of the Lord Lieutenant over this calamity was very 
 great, and he blamed himself bitterly for not having accompanied 
 the expedition personally. The blow to his prestige was almost 
 irremediable, and was only equalled by the stimulus given to 
 Shane's reputation. To recover his lost ground, Sussex made 
 an exceptionally vigorous effort. With a formidable and 
 mobile force he made a rapid march across the foot of Slieve 
 Gallion to the wilds of Glenconkein (Loughinshollin in Co. 
 Londonderry), which was Shane's most inaccessible fastness, 
 driving in all the cattle as he went. Shane made no appearance 
 and attempted no resistance, having, in fact, withdrawn still 
 further west into the Sperrin mountains, and 4,000 cattle and 
 a host of ponies were collected. Sussex's action on this occasion 
 was singularly characteristic of his methods. With a clear 
 recollection of the calamity which had overtaken his previous 
 raiding expedition, he had all the captured cattle slaughtered 
 on the spot, after which he proceeded methodically to lay waste 
 the surrounding country. From Glenconkein he moved south- 
 west to Omagh, and thence down the river Mourne to the Foyle, 
 where a victualling fleet had been ordered to put in. The 
 expected fleet, however, did not materialize, and Sussex had to 
 content himself with collecting a further 500 cattle, with which 
 he returned in triumph to Armagh. Throughout the expedition 
 there had been an entire absence of fighting ; Shane and his 
 armed forces keeping discreetly out of the way. 
 
 Sussex's methods, brutal and inartistic as they may appear 
 to us, were probably a necessity of the times, and the only 
 methods which were really intelligible to those he was dealing 
 with. In any event the desired result was certainly achieved, 
 for Shane, whose local reputation had no doubt waned in exact 
 ratio to the destruction of his assets by Sussex, came into 
 Carrickfergus, where he made abject and unconditional sub- 
 mission. It was eventually arranged that following in the 
 footsteps of his father he should go on a visit to the English 
 Court, not as a prisoner, but as a guest. He accordingly sailed 
 for England early in 1562. Sussex, apparently quite satisfied 
 
 * Sussex to Cecil, July 31st, 1561.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 17 
 
 with his exploit, followed him within a few months, leaving Sir 
 William Fitzwilliam to carry on the administration of Ireland.* 
 
 Elizabeth's real object in getting this wild Irish chieftain to 
 her Court is not quite clear. It may have been partly curiosity, 
 but the probability is that there were deeper aims behind. 
 Ferdoragh, Baron of Dungannon, was dead as Shane had taken 
 good care that he should be but Brian, his eldest son, was now 
 growing to manhood, and the royal hopes of reclaiming Ulster 
 from savagery were, at the moment, centred in this youth. 
 His father had been a consistent supporter of the English, not 
 only against Shane, but (a more important matter in English 
 eyes) against the Antrim Scotch, and their disquieting encroach- 
 ments. He had also given evidence of an intelligent appreciation 
 of English customs, and it was a reasonable hope that the son 
 would, in this respect, follow in his father's footsteps. Anyhow, 
 it was considered impossible that he could be as bad as Shane, 
 who was without a redeeming characteristic. Accordingly, 
 during O'Neil's absence in England, Fitzwilliam, acting under 
 royal instructions, paid special attention to young Brian, gaining 
 his friendship by small acts of kindness, and taking advantage 
 of their friendship to train him in the way he should go. His 
 chief aim was to eradicate from Brian's mind any lurking feeling 
 of friendship for the Scots, with whom he had spent two and a 
 half years in Cantyre as the nominal prisoner of James Mcdonriell 
 ofthelsles.| 
 
 Shane, in the meanwhile, was enjoying himself thoroughly at 
 Court. His first appearance created something in the nature 
 of a sensation, for he entered the presence of the Queen with a 
 retinue of six shaggy-maned Gallowglasses, bearing battle-axes 
 and wearing wide-sleeved saffron shirts, coats of mail and cloaks 
 of rough fur. Shane himself came in on his knees, prostrated 
 himself before the Queen, and " howling confessed his rebellion," 
 in fluent Irish, for the O'Neil had no more English than his 
 father before him.t 
 
 The rebellion which Shane " howling confessed " on his 
 knees, was hardly such in the ordinary sense, i.e., he had in no 
 
 * The only essential difference between the title of Lord Lieutenant and tliat 
 of Deputy was that the former was allowed to leave Ireland and could nominate 
 a Deputy in his absence. 
 
 t The McDonalds who settled in Antrim soon became McDonnells, a form of 
 spelling which consorted better with the Irish pronunciation of the name, 
 t Camden's "Elizabeth."
 
 18 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 way molested the Pale or any of the Government stations. His 
 crimes were exclusively crimes against his own countrymen, and 
 his only quarrel with England lay in the fact that he had grossly 
 violated the compact entered into with Cusack in 1552. In 
 this compact it had been expressly stipulated that neither Dun- 
 gannon, Calvagh, Maguire nor Tirlough Luineach should be 
 molested, and that the O'Neil was to confine his brigandage to 
 his own specified boundaries. This he had not done ; but his 
 two gravest faults vis-d-vis the English Government had been 
 the murder of Dungannon and the imprisonment and torture 
 of Calvagh. 
 
 Shane was entertained for a considerable time at the English 
 Court. The Queen wanted to see young Brian O'Neil, now 
 Baron of Dungannon, before she could decide how far he was 
 worth supporting as a counterpoise to Shane. Accordingly, on 
 May 13th, 1562, she wrote to Fitzwilliam, instructing him to 
 send the boy over. Fitzwilliam at once acted on these instruc- 
 tions, and Brian was on his way to Carlingford, with a view to 
 taking ship, when he was waylaid by Tirlough Luineach, with a 
 hundred or so of the Donnelly sept, and murdered. Brian 
 could make no resistance, for he had only twenty men with 
 him, but he succeeded for a time in eluding his pursuers by 
 hiding, naked to the skin, in a thicket, with the intention of 
 swimming the river as soon as it was dark. One of his followers, 
 however, betrayed his hiding-place, and he was dragged out and 
 butchered.* 
 
 This act first brings Tirlough Luineach into prominence in 
 Ulster. He was the son of Neil Connelly O'Neil, and a grandson 
 to Art O'Neil, who was Con Bacagh's brother. He was there- 
 fore first cousin once removed to Shane. Tirlough Luineach 
 was the official tanist, i.e., the nominated heir in case of Shane's 
 death, so that he had a potential interest in Brian's death ; but 
 there is very little doubt that the act was secretly instigated by 
 Shane himself, and that the Donnelly sept, who were Shane's 
 foster-brothers, were mainly responsible for the act, though 
 Tirlough Luineach was their nominal leader at the time of the 
 murder. 
 
 Brian left two brothers, Hugh and Cormac, and a half- 
 brother named Art, who was older than either. Hugh auto- 
 matically became Baron of Dungannon, and lived to become the 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. V., 82, 83, 84.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 19 
 
 second Earl of Tyrone, and the most persistent rebel of all the 
 long list of turbulent O'Neils. 
 
 With Brian's death the desirability of keeping Shane in 
 England passed away, and so, with 300 in his pocket, the 
 promise of O'Cahan's country, and a rhetorical outburst of 
 loyal protestations on his lips, he set sail for Ulster.* The 
 terms to which he bound himself were to keep the peace for 
 six months with O'Donnell, Maguire, O'Reilly, O'Hanlon, 
 McMahon and Magennis, while a commission, consisting of the 
 Earl of Kildare, the Earl of Ormonde and four members of the 
 Irish Privy Council, two named by himself and two by his 
 opponent, should sit and decide on all local differences. Shane 
 furthermore undertook not to molest the garrison at Armagh, 
 so long as it was victualled from the Pale, and to bring Calvagh 
 O'Donnell before a tribunal consisting of the four Earls of 
 Thomond, Desmond, Clanricard and Kildare, who should pro- 
 nounce as to his liberation or otherwise. Shane had no sooner 
 got back to Ulster than he coolly proceeded to break every 
 covenant he had made. The six months' independence of the 
 lesser chiefs, to which he had pledged himself with such pas- 
 sionate vehemence in London, he now laughed at as a stipula- 
 tion beneath consideration, and, to prove his contempt for such 
 trivial covenants, he started by driving into Tyrone several 
 thousand of O'Donnell' s cattle that were lying conveniently at 
 hand in Donegal, just across the river Mourne.j" Kildare, 
 Thomond and Clanricard were sent up to reason with him, but 
 nothing resulted. He was invited to meet Sussex at Dundalk, 
 but, conscious of his recent evil practices, he failed to keep the 
 appointment. In place of meeting the Lord Lieutenant he 
 made another raid into Donegal, drove off several thousand more 
 cattle, laid the entire country waste, and on his way home fell 
 on Maguire' s harvesters at Belleek and killed 300 men, women 
 and children.! By these two successive raids Donegal was 
 reduced to absolute famine ; no food was left, except berries 
 and roots, and the people died in hundreds by the roadside. 
 
 With a curious inconsistency, the Irish chiefs, instead of 
 finding fault with Shane for these villainous breaches of faith, 
 
 * Sir Richard Cox in his " Hibernia Anglicana " states that Elizabeth lent 
 Shane 2,500, but this is to be doubted. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. VI., 75. 
 
 J Maguire to Sussex, Oct. 20th, l.*j()-J.
 
 20 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 threw all the blame on the Queen ; never again, they said, 
 would they believe an English Monarch's promise of protection. 
 Sussex was completely unnerved by this unexpected and un- 
 deserved attack from those whom he had been doing his best 
 to help and protect. " I pray God," he wrote in pious despair, 
 " to rid me from serving with such as speak with their mouths 
 what they mislike with their hearts, and put forth with their 
 words that which they overthrow with their deeds." 
 
 Shane, having succeeded to his satisfaction in showing his 
 contempt for any restrictions placed by the Queen on his juris- 
 diction of Ulster, now proceeded to make his own terms with 
 those on whom he had been stamping his authority. By the 
 terms of this arrangement, entered into September, 1663, 
 Con O'Donnell was to enjoy his father's estate, and Calvagh 
 was to remain a prisoner for the rest of his life. By a further 
 triangular arrangement, in which the Antrim McDonnells were 
 included, it was settled that Con was to marry Shane's daughter, 
 Shane was to marry James McDonnell's daughter, and Sorley 
 Boy was to provide 500 Scots for Shane when called upon to 
 do so. Sorley Boy (or " the yellow-haired ") had now been 
 ruler of the McDonnell settlements in the Route since the death 
 of Colla in 1558. When Colla, whom Sussex in a letter to Boxall 
 describes as the best of the family,* died, James McDonnell 
 offered the captaincy of the Route to Alexander Oge, his second 
 brother, and then to Angus ; but both refused. Finally Sorley 
 Boy, the youngest, was forced to accept a position which was 
 clearly none too popular with the family. The practical effect 
 of the arrangement, above described, was as, of course, in- 
 tended to considerably augment Shane's fighting strength ; 
 and, with the increase in his power, came a corresponding in- 
 crease in his insolence. The pose of loyalty, temporarily 
 assumed as a convenience, was now contemptuously discarded, 
 and Shane blossomed out once more as an openly-defined rebel. 
 Sussex made an endeavour to correct this new mood by fitting 
 out the usual punitive expedition, with which he started north 
 in the summer of 1563. The army, however, was almost entirely 
 composed of Irish, and these quarrelled so incessantly among 
 themselves that no united action was possible, and Sussex had 
 to return with nothing accomplished. 
 
 He reorganized his force, however, and, a fortnight later, 
 
 * Sussex to Boxall, June 3rd, 1558.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 21 
 
 pushed westward as far as Clogher, but Shane never showed, and, 
 after capturing a few cattle, he again returned to Armagh, having 
 done little more than before. In an attempt to justify the 
 cost of the expedition, Sussex now fortified the great church at 
 Armagh, and, leaving 200 men there as a garrison, made his 
 way back to Dublin. Sussex's performances had been barren 
 enough, but his intentions were honestly polemic, and at his 
 next essay he would, in all probability, have brought Shane 
 within sight of submission, but during his absence in the north 
 the Queen had been persuaded to an entire reversal of her 
 policy. Cusack the Chancellor had been interviewing her, and, 
 by the advice of this pusillanimous and weak-kneed politician, 
 Shane was released from all his pledges. In pursuance of the 
 same policy, the Queen's protection was withdrawn from all 
 the minor chiefs who had previously relied on it. Cusack' s 
 argument was that the only way to govern Ireland was to 
 propitiate the more powerful and turbulent among the chiefs, 
 and to ignore such as were either too weak or too loyal to give 
 trouble a policy which, unfortunately, did not die with 
 Cusack but the real motive behind his advice was probably 
 mercenary, for Shane was little less ready with a bribe than his 
 successor in rebellion, Tyrone. Elizabeth was mainly induced 
 to fall in with Cusack' s view by her ingrained hatred of the 
 Scots. Her intense jealousy of Mary Stuart had broadened out 
 into a bitter rancour against all the subjects of that unhappy 
 Queen. Sussex had the sense to see that, as far as Ulster was 
 concerned, this was the foolish and narrow policy of a jealous 
 woman. All the continuous troubles and unrest of Ulster, 
 throughout Elizabethan days, might have been avoided had the 
 Queen only treated the Scots as friends in place of enemies, and 
 used them as her instruments for the pacification of Ulster, 
 which, indeed, they were only too anxious to become. Sussex, 
 in a report of his administration which was drawn up in 1562, 
 advises that " the Queen should not only tolerate with the 
 Scots of James Macdonald now in Ireland, but should gratify 
 them in their requests, and, by all the means that may be, 
 retain them in her service, which they earnestly seem to desire." 
 But Elizabeth, though shrewd enough in most matters, was 
 blind where her personal vanity was touched. Her terror 
 was lest Mary Queen of Scots should establish so firm a footing 
 in Ireland as to push her own interests to the detriment of
 
 22 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Elizabeth. So, in consultation with Cusack and in direct 
 opposition to the advice of Sussex, she arranged that Shane 
 should be taken into alliance against the intruders from Scot- 
 land. Cusack was accordingly sent over in a plenipotentiary 
 capacity, not to displace Sussex, who still remained Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, but with a special charter to put in operation any methods 
 which he might deem advisable. Sussex raised no objection, 
 for he was in bad health, miserably conscious of his failure, and 
 delighted at the prospect of a holiday in England. Before 
 leaving, however, he made one last attempt against Shane which 
 did not add to his reputation. One, John Smith, was sent 
 down into Tyrone, with instructions to bribe Neil Gray, a hanger- 
 on of Shane, to get rid of the troublesome O'Neil by means of 
 poison or otherwise.* The plot failed, and Sussex denied all 
 complicity in it, but there is very little doubt that he was impli- 
 cated, and possibly Cusack as well, but there is no evidence 
 that Elizabeth had any knowledge of the plot. 
 
 Cusack lost no time in giving evidence of his new powers 
 by releasing Shane from all his pledges and establishing formal 
 peace with him till All Saints' Day. After the feast of All 
 Saints it was agreed that the garrison was to be withdrawn from 
 Armagh, and the great church was to cease to be a fortress. 
 Shane was shrewd enough to base this demand on religious 
 grounds, and, in support of his new character for piety, he under- 
 took to forfeit 1,000 if he did not restore divine worship in 
 Armagh church within a month from the date of its being 
 restored to him."!" Shane really does seem for a very short time 
 to have made an effort in the right direction, by encouraging 
 various branches of husbandry in his territories. In any case, 
 the fact remains established that, during the next twelve months, 
 his only recorded offence against outside society was the 
 piratical seizure in Carlingford Harbour of a Scotch ship laden 
 with wine, which was doubtless too tempting a prize for any 
 O'Neil to allow to pass his gates. 
 
 * Carew MSS., 388. f Cal - state Papers, Nov. 1563.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Death of Manns O'Donnell Culoagh's release His appeal to Arnold and 
 Cusack His final appeal to the Queen Shane captures Donegal Castle 
 His tortures of Con McCalvagh His defeat by Sorley Boy at Coleraine 
 Shane's secret service system The Battle of Glentor Defeat of the Scots 
 Death of James McDonnell Sorley Boy a prisoner Shane captures 
 Dunseverick and Dunluce Jubilation in Dublin at Shane's victory 
 Shane accepts ransom for his prisoners Elizabeth's indignation Sir 
 Henry Sidney arrives as deputy Shane captures Dundalk, but is expelled 
 again Sidney's expedition to the north Randolph arrives at Deny 
 with a fleet Sidney's conquering tour of Donegal Calvagh reinstated as 
 the O'Donnell His death Randolph's troubles at Derry Privations of 
 the garrison Defeat of Shane at Lifford Randolph's death Evacuation 
 of Derry Defeat of Shane at Fersatmore He surrenders to the McDonnells 
 His death and character. 
 
 JN February, 1564, old Manus O'Donnell died in Lifford 
 Castle at the age of seventy-one. Shane seems to have 
 had a certain regard for the old man. It may be that his friend- 
 ship for Manus was only a reflection of his inveterate hatred 
 for Calvagh, for the father and son had always been at enmity. 
 But, in any event, the fact stands out that Lifford Castle was 
 left unmolested so long as Manus occupied it, but no sooner 
 was he dead than Shane instantly started to bargain with 
 Calvagh for its possession. This wretched man was still a 
 prisoner, but he was now promised his release on the condition 
 of handing over Lifford Castle and the lands of Inishowen 
 to Shane. Calvagh, having little option in the matter, agreed, 
 and the gyves, which he had now worn for close on three years, 
 were knocked off. His wife, however, who was by this time 
 the mother of two sons of Shane, was still kept prisoner with 
 the idea of extracting a ransom from the Macleans for her 
 release. As a matter of fact Shane did not get Lifford Castle, 
 for the garrison in occupation either acting on their own 
 initiative or else under Calvagh' s secret orders sturdily 
 refused to give it up, and Shane was not at the moment in a 
 position to take it by force. His fury at this unexpected 
 rebuff was not lessened by the fact of his late prisoner being 
 
 23
 
 24 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 beyond the reach of his vengeance. Calvagh, as a matter of 
 fact, had very wisely taken himself off to Dublin, where he 
 laid his piteous case before the Lords Justices Arnold and 
 Cusack, who were the Queen's representatives at the moment. 
 From neither of these time-servers did he get much satisfaction. 
 Arnold was a mere puppet in the hands of Cusack, and the 
 latter, acting on his fixed principle of never helping anyone 
 who was too weak to be troublesome or too poor to bribe 
 him, turned a deaf ear to all poor Calvagh' s woes. With a 
 casuistic avoidance of the main issue, he read O'Donnell a 
 lecture on his own past ill-treatment of his father Manus, and 
 tried to argue that he was now only reaping as he had sown. 
 
 Calvagh was dreadfully upset by this reception, and, when 
 he at length realized that the verdict was unfavourable, " he 
 burst out into such a weeping as when he would speak he could 
 not."* He had no intention, however, of accepting the Lords 
 Justices' ruling as final, and, in his resolve to push his case 
 to the last Court of Appeal, took measures for transferring 
 himself to England. His intention was discovered, and he 
 was definitely forbidden to leave the country, but he never- 
 theless managed somehow to elude detention and slip across, 
 and, making his way in miserable poverty to London, laid his 
 case before the Queen herself. Elizabeth heard him very 
 patiently, and at the end of his interpreted recital expressed 
 herself sorry for him, and gave him money for his immediate 
 needs, for he complained that " no man would trust him for 
 so much as a meal." At the same time she told Calvagh quite 
 plainly that she herself was powerless to decide his case, which 
 must be adjudicated through the regular channels in Ireland, 
 but that she would instruct Arnold to make him a fixed allow- 
 ance on his return to Ulster. Calvagh thanked her with 
 all humility, but he had no intention of returning to Ireland 
 just yet. He thoroughly distrusted Arnold and Cusack, both 
 of whom he strongly suspected of being in the pay of his deadly 
 enemy Shane, and he determined to remain on the safe side 
 of the Channel till Sidney went over as Deputy, of which there 
 was at the time much talk. He accordingly took himself 
 off to Scotland, where he remained as the guest of the Earl 
 of Argyle till the news reached him of the definite transfer of 
 authority in Ireland into the hands of Sidney. 
 
 * Wrothe to Dudley, July 23rd, 1564.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 25 
 
 Shane, baulked of his hoped-for vengeance on Calvagh, 
 determined that the son should suffer in place of the father, 
 and to this end hatched various schemes for getting possession 
 of the person of young Con. Fortune again favoured him. 
 Con who considered himself the natural heir to the Chiefry 
 of Tyrconnell set out in the early months of 1564 to attack 
 Hugh McHugh O'Donnell, who had taken possession of Donegal 
 Castle. Con met with but little success at first, but he finally 
 prevailed on Egnechan and Con O'Donnell, first cousins of 
 Hugh McHugh and members of the garrison, to betray the 
 castle into his hands.* The plot was carried through without 
 a hitch, and the garrison completely taken by surprise was 
 easily disposed of. The victors thereupon laid themselves out 
 to celebrate the event in the traditional way by a two or three 
 days' carouse. In the midst of this pleasant orgy they were sur- 
 prised by Shane and Hugh McManus (Calvagh's half-brother), 
 who had been kept fully informed of all that was going on inside 
 the walls ; in fact the circumstances strongly suggest that there 
 was double treachery, and that Con and Egnechan, having 
 first of all betrayed Hugh for the purpose of getting the younger 
 Con within the walls, then in turn betrayed him to Shane, in 
 accordance with a prearranged plan. In any case, the victors 
 now became the vanquished. Con took his father's place as 
 Shane's prisoner, and Hugh McManus had himself proclaimed 
 the O'Donnell. Shane at once began to torture his new captive, 
 with a view to forcing him to give up Lifford Castle. The high 
 strategic importance of this place lay in its position, which 
 commanded the only passage of the Mourne by which Donegal 
 could be entered from the east without the aid of boats, for the 
 river here was always fordable at all heights of the water. 
 Below Lifford the Mourne spreads out into the broad tidal 
 estuary of the Foyle, while above Lifford the river comes down 
 as a heavy turbulent stream only fordable at one or two spots 
 in the driest weather. 
 
 To avoid further torture, Con agreed to surrender the Castle, 
 but the garrison within the walls again refused to give it up. 
 This time Shane, having more leisure, deliberately sat down to 
 invest the place with a force which ate the country bare for 
 miles round, and finally starved the garrison into submission. 
 During these operations Tirlough Luineach, the tanist, worked 
 
 * Four Masterg.
 
 26 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 heart and soul with his chief, helping him both by personal ser- 
 vice in the field, and by placing at his disposal his Castle at 
 Strabane, locally known as " the Salmon."* 
 
 Part of Cusack's scheme of compromise with Shane had been 
 on the understanding, and indeed on the reasonable expecta- 
 tion, that the O'Neil, if left alone by the English, would concen- 
 trate his energies against the Antrim Scots. The wily Chan- 
 cellor knew well that, whatever the result, the advantage would 
 remain with the English ; for it was clearly easier and cheaper 
 to encourage the O'Neils and Mcdonnels to destroy one another 
 rather than that the Government should have to fight them both. 
 He accordingly represented to Shane that he would not be 
 viewed with strong favour by Her Majesty unless, in return for 
 his immunity from interference by the Government, he under- 
 took some kind of enterprise against the Scots. Such a propo- 
 sition was quite in tune with Shane's personal ambition. His 
 recent successes had filled him with the idea that he was in- 
 vincible, and the suggestion of ravaging a neighbour with the 
 approval of the Government was far too novel and attractive to 
 be neglected. He got together his fighting forces, and in August, 
 1564, set out towards the east with a view to putting Cusack's 
 proposition into practice. He ferried his army across the 
 flooded Bann at Coleraine and occupied the strong stone-built 
 Dominican Friary on the east bank. Shane himself, with his 
 customary prudence, remained on the western shore in the 
 ruined Castle of Culrath (Coleraine), which he entrenched and 
 fortified. With him was his friend and firm ally, Terence 
 Donnelly, Dean of Armagh. From this safe distance the two 
 watched the indignant Sorley Boy arrive in the early morning 
 with a force which was estimated at 800 men. The Mcdonnel 
 lost no time in attacking, and when he did attack, attacked with 
 irresistible vigour. " The Scots," according to the subsequent 
 report of the Dean of Armagh, " fought like madmen."| They 
 lost 90 men before they finally carried the place by assault 
 and put an end to the invaders. Shane's mounted men alone 
 escaped by swimming their horses across the Bann. O'Neil 
 himself had, as usual, galloped off into safety at the first sugges- 
 tion of defeat. 
 
 In April of the following year Shane renewed his attempt 
 
 * Camden's "Elizabeth." 
 
 t Terence Donolly to Arnold, Sept. 10th, 1564.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 27 
 
 upon the Scotch settlement, and this time his plans were better 
 laid. Shane's success in life was mainly due to the perfection 
 of his system of espionage. He had, it is true, during the years 
 '63, '64 and '65 the unfailing support and encouragement of 
 Cusack and Arnold, who, in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant, 
 practically ruled Ireland, but this in itself was not sufficient 
 to account for the almost unvarying success of a man who 
 apparently lacked all the elements of greatness. He was a 
 sot and a debauchee ; we know that he was seldom sober after 
 midday, and at times lay in a drunken stupor for days. He 
 had no pretensions to generalship in the field, and on more 
 than one occasion he unmistakably proved himself a very 
 sorry coward, and yet his success in extending his boundaries 
 and subjugating his enemies is beyond contention, and for this 
 he had to thank the efficiency of his secret service. Sussex was 
 fully aware of his enemy's chief source of strength. " There 
 can be no matter moved that toucheth Shane but he knoweth 
 it either before it be concluded or shortly after,"* he wrote to 
 Cecil in 1563. For this, however, Sussex had mainly himself to 
 blame, for he allowed Shane to make systematic use of his chief 
 spy Terence Donnelly, Dean of Armagh, to carry all messages 
 that passed between him and Dublin. The Donnellys were 
 Shane's foster-brothers, i.e., he had been put out to foster with 
 one of the sept, a ceremony which, in the eyes of the Irish, con- 
 stituted a far more sacred bond than real brotherhood, or indeed 
 than any blood relationship. Four of the sept, viz. : James, 
 Edmund, Donnell and Manus, were members of Shane's inner 
 Council, and the entire sept acted as his secret agents. " Shane's 
 strength," Phety-place, the pirate, explained while awaiting 
 sentence of death, " lies not in men but in subtlety ; his surety 
 not in the nobility nor yet in his kinsmen, but in his foster- 
 brothers, the Donnellys, about 300 gentlemen. His warrior, 
 indeed, is Tirlough Luineach."*j > 
 
 The pirate's estimate of his man and of his source of strength 
 is probably a true one. Donegal was subjugated not by force 
 of arms, but by Shane's ability, owing to exact information, 
 to successively kidnap the only two men who could effectively 
 hold the country together. In each case the seizure was effected 
 without a blow being struck. His success again against the 
 
 * Sussex to Cecil, Jan. 30th, 1563. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. XX., 92.
 
 28 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Scots in 1565 though not achieved without fighting was 
 mainly due to the exactitude of his information. 
 
 The Scotch colony in the Route, though it had pushed out 
 its boundaries to south and west, was as yet numerically in- 
 significant. Its chief source of strength lay in its proximity 
 to Scotland, and in its consequent power of drawing reinforce- 
 ments from that country at will ; but this closeness of touch 
 with Scotland was also its weakness. The Route was a Mc- 
 Donnell colony ; but the home, the interests and the main 
 resources of the clan were still in Scotland, and these no less 
 than the Route had to be protected from depredations. So 
 they came and went as necessity demanded. The mercenaries 
 who fought their tribal battles for the Irish chiefs were equally 
 migratory Scots, but these had no connection with the Route 
 colony. They simply fought for the chief who hired them. 
 Fighting was their profession, and they would just as readily 
 have fought against the McDonnells as with them, if the con- 
 ditions of their contract had demanded it. Shane always kept 
 a few thousands of these mercenary Scots about him as a body- 
 guard. Their fighting reputation was high. Sir Francis 
 Knollys in 1566 estimated that " 300 of the Scots are harder 
 to be vanquished than 600 of the Irish,"* and the strength of 
 the Irish chieftains in their inter-tribal battles was in exact 
 ratio to the number of Scots they could afford to keep in their 
 pay. The native kerne and gallowglasses had little value as 
 actual combatants, though unrivalled as scouts, foragers and 
 cattle-drivers. 
 
 In April, 1566, the Route colony was exceptionally weak, 
 and Shane was quick to be informed and to take advantage. 
 James and Alexander Oge, with a strong fighting force, were 
 over in Cantyre, and, of the five surviving brothers, Angus and 
 Sorley Boy were the only two in Ulster at the moment. Shane 
 was quick to seize his opportunity, and, having rapidly con- 
 centrated his force at Edenduffcarrick on the north-east shore 
 of Lough Neagh, he swept down on the two brothers. The 
 McDonnell outposts detected his advance, and beacon fires went 
 up from all the mountain tops as a signal to their kinsmen 
 across the water. James McDonnell, away in Antrim, saw the 
 fires, and knew their meaning only too well. Leaving in- 
 structions with his brother Alexander to collect all the men 
 
 * Knollys to Cecil, May, 1566.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 29 
 
 he could and follow with all possible speed, he leapt into a 
 boat, and, with a handful of followers, set sail for Ulster. The 
 wind, however, was unfavourable and progress was slow. 
 The first sight that greeted James' eyes on sighting land were 
 the flames arising from his fine new house in Red Bay. This 
 house James had built only four years before ; a hundred 
 masons and carpenters had been imported from Cantyre for the 
 purpose, and it was reckoned the finest structure in Ulster. 
 Worse, however, was to follow. On reaching land, he found 
 that his brother Angus had already been killed. Sorley Boy 
 was still holding out, standing at bay with his back to the sea 
 at Glentor, near the site of the present-day Ballycastle. James 
 managed to effect a junction with his youngest brother, but 
 the reinforcements which he brought were a mere handful 
 and had little effect upon the issue. Shane's forces out- 
 numbered the McDonnells by over two to one, and the latter 
 were all but annihilated. Five hundred or so were killed, 
 James fell severely wounded into Shane's hands, and Sorley 
 Boy was also taken prisoner. The next day Alexander Oge 
 arrived with nine hundred men, but all was by that time over, 
 and he returned to Scotland. 
 
 The capture of James McDonnell of the Isles was of immense 
 political importance to Shane, and, had the chief lived, the 
 Route and the Glynns would have remained as effectually 
 under Shane's heel as Donegal was owing to the capture of 
 Con. However, within two days James had succumbed to 
 his wounds, and Shane's aims were defeated. He still, how- 
 ever, had Sorley Boy in his hands, and nineteen others of 
 importance, whom he subsequently ransomed, with consider- 
 able financial profit to himself,* and to the intense annoyance 
 of Queen Elizabeth. Shane followed up his victory by suc- 
 cessively capturing the two strongholds of Dunseverick and 
 Dunluce. While he was investing the latter place, Sorley Boy 
 was kept three days and nights without food, in order to induce 
 the garrison to surrender. Sorley Boy gallantly bade them 
 hold out and not mind him, but to save their Chief further 
 torture the garrison surrendered and were all immediately 
 put to the sword."!" 
 
 Shane's success caused immense jubilation in Dublin. The 
 
 * Elizabeth to Sidney, Nov. 1565. 
 
 f Gerot Fleming to Cusack, June, 1505.
 
 30 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 good news was received as usual through the medium of the 
 Dean of Armagh ; and the Privy Council, by means of the same 
 messenger, sent back hearty congratulations, coupled with 
 inquiries as to the best means of exterminating the remainder 
 of the Scots left in Ulster. Shane was two months in answer- 
 ing, but finally, in August, he sent back the announcement that 
 the Scots had been wholly expelled the Kingdom, and that all 
 their towns and fortresses were now at the disposal of Her 
 Majesty. On this occasion, Shane, with a considerable force 
 at his heels, accompanied his messenger, the Dean of Armagh, 
 as far as Newry, which important place he coolly took pos- 
 session of and filled with his own men. This last act proved 
 Shane's undoing. It was in itself an act of overt insolence, 
 and it was only one of many misdemeanours with which Shane 
 was simultaneously charged. It transpired that the Earl of 
 Argyle had ransomed the nineteen important McDonnell 
 prisoners whom Shane had captured, paying very high sums for 
 their release. These were now back in the Route, and once 
 more building up their strength. Sorley Boy was still a 
 prisoner, but Alexander Oge and his nephew, Gillaspick, had 
 come over in his place, and the Route, reinforced with fighting 
 men from Scotland, was much as it had been before Shane's 
 invasion. All this greatly incensed the Queen. She wrote 
 to Dublin in the most indignant terms, pointing out that 
 Shane should have handed over his prisoners to the Govern- 
 ment and not have trafficked them for money, and added 
 that he was at once to evacuate Newry Castle or feel the weight 
 of her displeasure. Shane, who now thought himself in- 
 vincible, laughed at the great Queen. What he had won, 
 he said, he had won with the sword, and with the sword he 
 would keep it. His past successes perhaps justified him in his 
 arrogance, but he miscalculated one factor in the case. On 
 June 13th, 1566, Sir Henry Sidney had arrived in Ireland as 
 Deputy in place of Sussex, or, rather, in place of Arnold and 
 Cusack, for Sussex was seldom in Ireland ; and, in the Queen's 
 new representative, Shane had to deal with a man of very 
 different calibre to the two Lords Justices. Sidney, who 
 was Sussex's brother-in-law, was no novice in Irish matters. 
 He had close on ten years' experience, first as Lord Justice, 
 and later as Vice-Treasurer. Both Arnold and Cusack in- 
 trigued with all the statecraft of which they were such masters
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 31 
 
 to be appointed in Sussex's place, but Elizabeth's remarkable 
 sagacity saved her from an error which might for ever have 
 ruined her cause in Ireland. The Queen personally disliked 
 Sidney, but she recognized his extraordinary merits, and that 
 he was an administrator of a very high order is beyond question. 
 All the Irish Annalists join in singing his praises in a high key, 
 and though such praises might be construed into prima facie 
 evidence of corrupt relations existing between the Deputy 
 and the Chiefs, there is no internal evidence in the State 
 correspondence of the day to substantiate any such view. 
 
 The irritation of the Queen at Shane's commercial use of 
 his victory is easily understood. The Scotch colony in Antrim 
 was a growing menace to the English in Ireland. A scheme 
 was fast taking shape for the formation of a second Pale in 
 Antrim, which was to be planted with a colony of English 
 settlers. The Hea had first originated in 1562 with Sir Thomas 
 Smith, one of the Queen's Secretaries, but fell through for 
 the moment owing to the initial difficulty of expelling the 
 Scots. Then Cusack unfolded to the Queen his plan of en- 
 couraging Shane, who was the best destructive medium in 
 Ulster, to exterminate the Scots, after which it was reckoned 
 that the projected settlement could be easily carried out. 
 This policy of treating Shane as an ally instead of as an enemy 
 had now continued for three years ever since Shane's return 
 from England, in fact. It was a policy which was justifiable, 
 and perhaps even desirable, if the ultimate goal aimed at was 
 the expulsion of the Scots with a view to clearing the land for 
 an English plantation. But the drawback to the scheme 
 was that it necessarily gave Shane a free hand to do as he would 
 in other directions. In the words of the contemporary State 
 Papers : " Shane's chief policy was enmity of the Scots. This 
 gained for him in many of his misdeeds [in other directions] 
 the connivance of the statesmen who governed Ireland." 
 Here we have Cusack and Arnold very plainly indicated, as in 
 no extant historical records is there any suggestion of con- 
 nivance between Shane and Sidney. 
 
 After Shane's victory in the Route in the spring of 1565, 
 the Queen had every reason to flatter herself that Cusack's 
 policy had been justified by results, and that the Scotch element 
 had been finally got rid of. When, therefore, she found that 
 Shane was merely turning his success to his own financial
 
 32 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 advantage, and worse still was releasing in return for 
 ransom nineteen of the more important McDonnells, she was 
 naturally much incensed. When, in addition, the O'Neil 
 coolly annexed Newry Castle, her patience gave way, and the 
 fiat went forth that Shane was to be brought to his senses. 
 This, however, thanks to Cusack's three years of encourage- 
 ment, was far from an easy matter. Shane had taken advan- 
 tage of his immunity from Government interference to gradually 
 build up his strength, and he now boasted that he could put 
 4,000 foot and 1.000 horse into the field. Sidney, who was 
 anxious, if possible, to come to a friendly understanding with- 
 out resorting to more drastic measures, on learning of the 
 Queen's resolution, sent Shane several invitations to come to 
 Dundalk and talk things over quietly. Shane, however, 
 conscious of having sacrificed the Government schemes to his 
 own greed for money, declined to run the risk of attending a 
 pacific conference ; but in a sense though not in the intended 
 sense he obeyed the summons, for he arrived at Dundalk 
 with a large body of horse, devastated all the country for miles 
 round, and even pushed his way into the town itself, not as a 
 penitent, but as a conqueror. This latter role, however, he 
 was not able to sustain for long. John Fitzwilliam, the 
 Governor, collected all the local forces available, and, aided 
 by Sarsfield, the Mayor of Dublin, who arrived with a con- 
 tingent from the Pale, he ejected the intruder with considerable 
 loss. 
 
 Shane, like a naughty child sure of punishment, now with- 
 drew to the fastness of Glenconkein,* where he hid himself 
 and awaited results. He had burnt his boats and he knew it. 
 All the make-believe of the past three years was at an end. He 
 had defied the great Queen, and he had sufficient experience 
 of Elizabeth to know that this surely meant trouble. 
 
 The trouble, in the shape of Sidney, started for the north 
 in August, 1566, accompanied by Shane's two bitterest enemies, 
 Calvagh O'Donnell and Shane Maguire, and a well-equipped 
 force of 1,700 foot. The new Deputy departed from the 
 fixed traditions of the Island in avoiding, as far as possible, 
 wanton damage to property. There was no systematic 
 
 * Loughinshollin, orjGlenconkein as it was then called, was, strictly speaking* 
 part of Brian Carragh's country. Its popularity as a place of retreat was on 
 account of its dense forests and of the facilities it afforded for further retreat 
 if necessary into the wild mountains between Dungiven and Newtown.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 33 
 
 butchery of stock or burning of crops, except south of Clogher, 
 where Sidney, as a mark of the Queen's displeasure, burned the 
 country of the usurping Maguire, who was in close league with 
 Shane. The route which Sidney chose was through Armagh, 
 across the Blackwater at Benburb, where he totally destroyed 
 Shane's chief Castle, which stood on the brow of the steep 
 bluff from which the place takes its name. From there he 
 passed on to Clogher, and from Clogher to Omagh, where 
 Maguire suddenly died. After leaving Omagh, Sidney scaled 
 the slopes of Slieve Trim, and passed across the head of Lough 
 Leaghaire to Castlederg. Here Shane put in an unexpected 
 appearance at the head of 5,000 men, but apparently only for 
 purposes of demonstration, for he made no attempt to give 
 battle, and disappeared again as quickly as he had come. 
 
 It is perhaps too much to say that Sidney's Ulster invasion 
 of 1566 was the first Government expedition of the kind that 
 evidenced any intelligence on the part of its organizer, but it 
 unquestionably showed a marked advance in the first prin- 
 ciples of generalship over anything that had gone before. 
 The outstanding feature of the expedition was the profitable use 
 to which Sidney turned the Foyle estuary. It was by no means 
 the first time that the possibilities of the Foyle had been recog- 
 nized ; Sussex, for instance, in 1561 had co-operated with a 
 victualling fleet which had been sent round to the Foyle, but 
 in his case the fleet, having performed its function, returned 
 whence it had come. There was no question at that time of the 
 establishment of a permanent base at Deny. This idea was left 
 for Sidney to conceive and carry out. He seems to have been 
 the first to realize that which seems so absurdly obvious to the 
 modern mind, viz., that the strength of all the O'Neil rebellions 
 lay in the twenty days' march which separated them from 
 Dublin, in the precarious voyage of the expeditionary force, 
 and in the ague and dysentery which invariably made their 
 appearance among the troops after a fortnight's exposure to 
 damp and privations. It was evident to Sidney that the only 
 solution of these difficulties lay in the establishment of a vic- 
 tualling base in or adjacent to O'Neil' s own country. The 
 natural spot indicated by all the circumstances was Deny. 
 Deny practically commanded all Donegal and Tyrone, and, 
 as the Ulster chiefs had no maritime forces, the sea route that 
 led to it was free from all the perils to commissariat that lurked 
 
 3
 
 34 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 in the hazel and holly scrub through which the rough horse- 
 track, known as the Northern Road, wound its way. 
 
 Sidney had immense difficulty in persuading Elizabeth to 
 fall in with his scheme, her objection to his proposal being on 
 the grounds of the heavy expense involved, and the uncertainty 
 as to the advantages being commensurate with the cost. 
 Finally, however, her grudging consent was obtained ; and 
 it was arranged that, while Sidney was working north through 
 the bogs and mountains of Tyrone, Colonel Edward Randolph, 
 Master of Her Majesty's Ordnance in England, should sail 
 round from Bristol to the Foyle with a co-operating fleet. 
 For once in a way there were no unforeseen delays. The fleet 
 carried seven hundred men, provisions, treasure, twenty butts 
 of sack and two surgeons,* and Randolph managed to bring the 
 whole of his charge safely to port. He was unfortunately 
 much delayed at first by contrary winds, which, to his great 
 distress, frustrated his pet scheme of reaping (or destroying) 
 Shane's harvest before his people could get it in. By the time 
 he arrived it had all been cut, and was hidden away out of 
 his reach in woods and caves. Randolph left his ships and the 
 bulk of his cargo at Derry, and on foot marched up from there 
 to Lifford, where he met Sidney, who had followed the river 
 Derg down to its junction with the Mourne. Together the two, 
 with all their men, waded across the river to Strabane, where 
 they made friends with Tirlough Luineach, and from that 
 point followed the right bank of the Foyle down till they were 
 opposite Derry, when they were ferried across in some of 
 Randolph's small boats. 
 
 Sidney converted the old church at Derry into the main 
 fortress, and, leaving six hundred foot and fifty horse with 
 Randolph, passed on into Donegal by way of Raphoe and the 
 Barnesmore Gap. Here he was joined by O'Boyle, McSweeney 
 Fanad (i.e., of Fanad) and O'Gallagher. O'Dogherty, the 
 Inishowen Chieftain, remained behind to co-operate with 
 Randolph. A triumphal tour of Donegal followed. No opposi- 
 tion was encountered, and the lands of Tyrconnell were formally 
 restored to Calvagh, together with the lordship over O'Connor 
 Sligo, who, by the decree of the Deputy, was henceforth to pay 
 him rent. By the terms of a supplemental agreement Cal- 
 vagh was articled to rebuild Castle Finn for the use of Hugh 
 * Cal. State Papers, June 1566.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 85 
 
 McManus, who, in the meanwhile, was given a royal warrant 
 to occupy the castles of Belleek and Bondries, made forfeit 
 by the misdemeanours of the usurping Maguire. Calvagh, poor 
 man, did not live long to enjoy his recovered revenues and 
 honours, for, while riding one day from Lifford to Derry, his 
 horse stumbled and threw him, breaking his neck. His last 
 words were an exhortation to his followers to be true to the 
 Queen. The moment Calvagh was dead, his half-brother 
 Hugh who had usurped the title of O'Donnell upon Shane's 
 capture of Con had himself formally invested at Kilmacrenan. 
 There can be no question as to the soundness of Sidney's 
 policy of establishing a base at Derry ; the practical experience 
 of 350 years has proved how very right he was, but the first 
 attempt ended in sad disaster, in some degree owing to the 
 unfortunate death of Calvagh. That loyal subject had under- 
 taken, in his capacity as the O'Donnell, to supply the Derry 
 garrison with forty oxen every week, or in place of each ox, 
 six sheep, or four pigs of a year old, as well as oats and straw 
 for their horses.* These exact and carefully-phrased con- 
 ditions would no doubt have been faithfully carried out had 
 the good old Calvagh lived. Hugh, however, who succeeded 
 him though bitterly hating Shane had little love for Sidney, 
 who had championed Calvagh' s cause against his own. The 
 supplies ceased, and in October Randolph reported that he 
 was unable by any means to get sufficient provisions to keep 
 the men alive. To add to the trials of the garrison, O'Cahan's 
 herds could be plainly seen grazing in tantalizing security 
 on the far shore of the Foyle painfully inaccessible to the 
 hungry men who eyed them across the water. The food 
 troubles were mainly caused by the exorbitance of the prices 
 demanded by the natives for all local produce. These prices 
 were so fantastically rapacious that fair barter became an 
 impossibility, and there was no half-way house left between 
 starvation and the forcible seizure of corn and cattle from those 
 who were their nominal allies. This last course was contrary 
 to the explicit orders of Sidney, who had been unable to foresee 
 the unreasonable greed of the natives, and who had made no 
 provision against such a contingency. Randolph, however, 
 who was considered one of the most capable commanders in 
 Her Majesty's service, was a man of unbounded energy and 
 
 * Carew MSS., Oct. 1506. 
 
 3*
 
 36 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 resource, and not easily to be daunted by difficulties. As 
 long as he lived, means were found to keep the garrison supplied 
 with the bare necessaries of life. It was not till after his death 
 that the real pinch was felt. This catastrophe fell about as 
 follows : Shane, whose information was always exact and 
 up to date, had immediate news of Sidney's departure into 
 Donegal with the bulk of the fighting men, and he quite properly 
 concluded that this was the right moment at which to strike 
 a sudden blow at the unwelcome English settlement which 
 bade fair to take root at his doors. Early in November, 
 accordingly, he assembled a force, which Cox, the seventeenth- 
 century historian, estimates at 2,500 foot and 300 horse,* 
 with which he safely crossed the river at Lifford. Randolph, 
 however, had received word of his intention, and no sooner 
 had the invaders set foot on the Donegal side, than they were 
 attacked by the Derry garrison, and, in spite of the disparity 
 in numbers, completely routed. Four hundred of Shane's 
 men were killed on the spot, and the rest were driven to take 
 refuge in the neighbouring woods, where numbers more were 
 eventually hunted down and killed by O'Dogherty and his 
 Inishowen men, who had remained as onlookers till the issue 
 was no longer doubtful. Only one man was killed on the 
 English side, but that one was Randolph. Randolph's loss 
 at once made itself felt. He was the mainstay of the entire 
 settlement, and Captain Vaughan, who succeeded temporarily 
 to the command, had by no means the same organizing powers. 
 Great privations began to be experienced, and all through the 
 winter the usual diseases attendant upon exposure and im- 
 proper feeding made themselves felt. In December Captain 
 Saintloo arrived by sea with provisions, and took over the 
 command from Vaughan. The spirits of the garrison revived 
 considerably, and in February a successful raid was made 
 into O'Cahan's country, in the course of which 1,000 cattle 
 and 700 ponies were rounded up : but disease was still rampant 
 among the garrison, and in March Saintloo wrote home that, 
 out of the original 600, only 200 were fit for service. Of his 
 officers Captain. Schryven had died and Captain Wilsford was 
 " sore sick." The crowning calamity occurred in April, when, 
 by a piece of unexplained carelessness, a spark from the black- 
 smith's forge found its way into the magazine. Thirty men 
 
 * " Hibernia Anglicana."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 87 
 
 were killed outright by the explosion, and Captain Gourlay, 
 we are told, had his leg blown off, but subsequently recovered.* 
 Nothing remained now but to evacuate the station, as the 
 only effective means of defence was gone. It was agreed that 
 every man should shift for himself. Under this arrangement 
 " Captain George Harvey and his troop of forty horse, being 
 loth to kill their horses, took the resolution to march round 
 through Tyrconnell and Connaught, and valiantly performed 
 it, though they were forced to march four days through the 
 enemy's country and were pursued by a multitude of rebels, 
 yet they got safe to Dublin, to the great admiration of Deputy 
 and Council." "f" 
 
 Saintloo himself, and the remainder, took their lives in their 
 hands and rode clean through the enemy's country to Carrick- 
 fergus, which they reached in safety, though after many perilous 
 adventures. Thus ended the first attempted settlement of 
 Deny. 
 
 In the meanwhile the tide of Shane's fortunes was beginning 
 slowly to ebb. At the beginning of the year, Alexander Oge 
 had written offering the Queen the services of his clan against 
 the great rebel. Elizabeth, yielding to the strong repre- 
 sentation of Sidney, grudgingly gave her consent. In December, 
 1566, in pursuance of this arrangement, McDonnell came 
 over from Canty re with 1,200 men, landed at the Glynns, 
 and crossing the Bann killed 60 of Shane's people and 
 rounded up many cattle. The blow, however, which was 
 for ever to shatter Shane's fortunes was dealt by his one- 
 time firm ally, Hugh McManus O'Donnell, now since Calvagh's 
 death the official head of the clan. Hugh, it will be remem- 
 bered, had invoked the aid of Shane against Calvagh and his 
 son Con. Shane had readily responded, but, after successively 
 capturing both the father and the son, he had coolly pro- 
 claimed himself lord of Donegal in place of Hugh. Hugh 
 never forgave this breach of faith, and when Shane " did very 
 cruelly kill O'Donnell's brother Manus McManus and 140 of 
 his men," | the O'Donnell openly changed sides and ranged 
 himself among the enemies of O'Neil. To accentuate and give 
 practical expression to his hostility, he made overtures for the 
 hand of James McDonnell's widow, commonly known as Lady 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, April, 1507. f " Hibernia Anglicana." 
 
 J Bishop of Meath to (Veil, April, l.jftfl.
 
 88 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Agnes Campbell, who, he made little doubt, would gladly 
 unite with him in order to be revenged on Shane for the death 
 of her man. The lady, however, to his great surprise, declined 
 the honour, just as she had declined Shane's proposal two 
 years before, and as in Shane's case gave him instead a 
 daughter (Ineenduv), who had no greater love for Shane 
 than had her mother. This black-haired lady was destined 
 in time to become the mother of Hugh Roe, and the most 
 prominent female figure in Ulster history. The O'Donnell 
 was quite pleased with the alliance, and, at the instigation of 
 his young wife, he swooped down on the Strabane country 
 in the spring of 1567 and collected much spoil, with which he 
 returned in triumph to Letterkenny. 
 
 Shane's spirit, however, was not yet broken. Early in May 
 he set out in pursuit of the O'Donnell, crossed the Foyle below 
 Lifford, and passing on to the head of Lough Swilly, crossed 
 easily enough by the Fersat at Soloughmore, about two miles 
 to the east of Letterkenny, the tide being out at the time. 
 O'Donnell, with his cousin, Hugh Oge McHugh, was at Ardin- 
 garry with 400 men when he learned of Shane's invasion. 
 With a decision of character of which he gave no evidence 
 on any other occasion, and which was probably in the present 
 instance vicarious, O'Donnell determined on an immediate 
 attack. He was very greatly outnumbered by Shane's 
 forces, but the disparity in numbers did not in any way affect 
 the result. At the first onslaught, Shane's men broke and 
 fled in confusion down to the shores of Lough Swilly, where 
 the tide by now was so high as to render the passage impossible. 
 Caught in a trap, they fell easy victims to the weapons of the 
 pursuing O'Donnells The slaughter was tremendous, for of 
 those that fled from the sword into the waves the greater 
 part were drowned. The Four Masters, who were Donegal 
 men, in an optimistic estimate, place the number of killed 
 at 1,800, but Sidney's figure of 613 is more probably correct. 
 Thomas Lancaster, afterwards Bishop of Armagh, had reliable 
 information that very few escaped. Shane himself narrowly 
 avoided being taken, and the Donegal Annalists record that, 
 as a result of the disaster, " his senses and reason became 
 deranged." This conclusion was probably deduced from his 
 subsequent behaviour, which certainly savoured of lunacy. 
 On the O'Donnell side the only loss of importance in the Battle
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 39 
 
 of Fersatmore was that of Neil McDonough, who according 
 to the same authority was killed by his own people. 
 
 The great Shane's talons being now effectually clipped, 
 the neighbouring jackals were not slow to turn the opportunity 
 to their own advantage. Raids were made upon the now 
 defenceless country of Tyrone from all quarters of the Province, 
 of which not the least successful was that of Art McBaron, 
 Ferdoragh's eldest illegitimate son, who made an invasion 
 from Carrickfergus, where he was at the time the guest of 
 Captain Piers, and carried off a thousand head of cattle.* 
 
 Shane was now very near the end of his tether. His army 
 and his prestige were gone, and, with the loss of these, had 
 gone his friends. On every side of him were enemies to his own 
 race, men whom he had irrevocably estranged by various acts 
 of cruelty or despotism. Beyond loomed the great army of 
 the Deputy, the cells of Dublin Castle, and possibly the scaffold. 
 In this extremity, and acting on the advice of his priest, Neale 
 McKever,| he fled with a meagre following of fifty men across 
 Tyrone into the McDonnell country, and there gave himself 
 up to Alexander Oge. This was little short of an act of despair, 
 for Shane had the blood of both James and Angus on his hands, 
 to say nothing of the destruction of the family house at Red 
 Bay two years before. Sorley Boy was possibly his friend, 
 though even he could hardly have forgotten his three days 
 and nights of starvation, and the resulting butchery of the 
 faithful Dunluce garrison ; but from the other brothers, and 
 from James' widow, he had little mercy to expect and still less 
 help. However, it would seem that, in spite of the feuds 
 between the two houses, he was at first well received. He 
 was hospitably entertained at Cushenden at a banquet, the 
 sumptuousness of which was probably his undoing ; for both 
 hosts and guests got heated with wine and indulged in boasting 
 and mutual recrimination, out of which arose a scuffle, in 
 which Shane was killed. 
 
 Shane died on June 2nd, 1567. His body was respectfully 
 laid out in the McDonnells' private chapel and then buried, 
 but Captain Piers, on learning of the event, rode across from 
 Carrickfergus, dug up the body, which had been four days 
 in the ground, cut off the head and sent it to Dublin " pickled 
 
 * Thomas Lancaster to Cecil, May 81st, 1567. 
 f Carew MSS., 1567, Appendix 288.
 
 40 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 in a pipkin," for which he received the thousand marks at 
 which the head was priced by the Government.* 
 
 Shane is generally supposed to have been born in 1530, 
 but this is probably incorrect, for in 1569 he had a grandson, 
 Con Boy McHenry, who was at any rate old enough to be in 
 command of a raiding party which Tirlough Luineach sent into 
 the McMahon country. Even allowing for the extreme pre- 
 cocity of Irish marriages in the sixteenth century, "j* this suggests 
 strongly that he was born some years before the date generally 
 fixed. Other facts tend to confirm this view. His father, 
 Con Bacagh, was born in 1484, and nothing is less likely than 
 that the old chief should have been forty-six years of age by 
 the time his eldest legitimate son was born. 
 
 Shane left seven sons, Henry, Con, Shane Oge, Hugh, Art, 
 Brian and Tirlough.J Fitzwilliam, in a letter to Burleigh, 
 written shortly after Shane's death, makes the statement that 
 " they were all save one of the Scottish race and greatly 
 beloved, and would no doubt attempt to succeed Tirlough 
 Luineach." On the other hand, Nicholas Maltby, Governor 
 of Connaught, describes them as " the most venomous and 
 hateful persons of this land." The one son of Shane who 
 was of pure Irish blood was Shane Oge, whose mother had 
 been Margaret O'Donnell. The mother of the two eldest had 
 been a McDonnell of Cantyre, while Hugh, Art and Brian 
 were by Catherine McLean, Countess of Argyle (Calvagh 
 O'Donnell's imprisoned wife). Tirlough, the youngest, was 
 the son of Catherine McDonnell, daughter of James McDonnell 
 of the Route and the sister of Ineenduv. Shane's original 
 idea had been to marry James McDonnell's widow, the Lady 
 Agnes Campbell, and, with that end in view, he had turned 
 out into the cold that most ill-fated woman, Catherine, Countess 
 of Argyle. Lady Agnes, however, declined the honour for 
 herself, but was sufficiently attracted by the prospect 
 
 * Carew MSS. Sidney to Walsingham, March, 1583. Hill's " McDonnells 
 of Antrim." 
 
 f Patrick Condon, a prominent political figure, was born when his mother 
 was eleven years of age. Cal. State Papers, Vol. 203, 106. 
 
 J Cal. State Papers, Vol. LXV., 6-II. 
 
 See " Book of Howth," p. 209. Camden says that both Henry and Shane 
 were by Margaret O'Uonnell, but this is impossible. See Cal. State Papers, 
 Vol. 207, Part II., 138.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 41 
 
 of the political alliance to give him her daughter Catherine 
 instead.* 
 
 Shane O'Neil, unattractive though he appears as an in- 
 dividual, was undoubtedly a remarkable personality, inas- 
 much as he managed to extend his sway over practically the 
 whole of Ulster, and that in spite of repeated and ignominious 
 defeats in the field. This success as has already been ex- 
 plained was mainly due to the perfection of his secret-service 
 system. In his own person he was a repulsive character. As 
 far as can be gathered from contemporary chronicles, he had 
 no virtues. He was brutal in his treatment of his wives, and 
 barbarously cruel to his prisoners. He tortured and cut off 
 the ear of a messenger of his who failed to explain his meaning 
 successfully to Sussex. He was grotesquely vain, and an 
 inveterate liar, drunk every afternoon, and a great glutton. 
 Camden relates that, after his more violent excesses, he would 
 cause himself to be placed in a pit with loose earth thrown 
 up to his chin to cool his system.^ He never kept his word 
 except when it suited him, and he was totally devoid of per- 
 sonal courage. O'Donnell wrote to the Queen in 1562 that 
 " in Shane's promises there is no assurance, nor trust in his 
 word, with as many other vices as a man of his sort may 
 have."J 
 
 In the " Book of Howth " we find the following curious descrip- 
 tion of him : " He was a great surfeiter, a great spender, and 
 cruel and extreme in all his affairs, no man his like, and liberal 
 in nothing but in housekeeping. A courteous, loving and a 
 good companion to those whom he loved, being strangers to 
 his country. They said he was the last that could give the 
 charge upon his foes ; and the first that would flee ; but he 
 could well procure his men to do well." 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part II., 138. See also Sidney to Privy 
 Council, April, 1566. 
 
 f Camden's " Elizabeth." 
 
 t O'Donnell to Elizabeth, 1572.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Proposed Plantation schemes in Antrim Capt. Piers' truce with Sorley Boy 
 Sorley Boy's faithful observance of the compact Scots evacuate Ulster 
 Fitzwilliam's negotiations with Tirlough Luineach Character of Tirlough 
 Luineach He proposes for Lady Bagenal's sister Tirlough Luineach raids 
 the McMahon's Death of Con Boy McHenry Defeat of Tirlough Luineach 
 His marriage with Lady Agnes Sir Thomas Smith's Plantation Scheme 
 His negotiations with Sir Brian McPhelin Return of Scots to Ulster 
 Indifference of the Irish Hostility towards English Plantation Arrival 
 of Smith Murder of Henry Savage Smith's administration at Carrick- 
 fergus Discontent of the townsmen Sir Brian burns the town Immigra- 
 tion of the townsmen. 
 
 NO sooner was Shane dead than the Queen's mind reverted 
 to her pet scheme of planting Antrim and Down with 
 a colony of English. She makes her views on the subject 
 quite clear in her two letters to Sidney of June llth and July 
 6th, 1567. There appears to have been at the first no idea of 
 forcible seizure. The country it was proposed to plant was 
 for the most part very thinly populated and crying out for 
 settled industries and cultivation. The chiefs were the only 
 interested parties likely to raise any difficulties, and of these 
 the most formidable had now been providentially removed. 
 Those of secondary importance she proposed should be 
 suitably compensated. A month later she again wrote to 
 Sidney, but with a slight change of programme. By the 
 terms of this revised scheme, Alexander Oge and his Scots 
 were to be handsomely rewarded for their services against 
 Shane, but at the same time, were to be politely told to leave 
 the country.* If they did not fall in harmoniously with this 
 arrangement, then force was to be used to expel them, for on 
 one point she was immovably determined, and that was that 
 the Route and the Glynns should be planted with English. 
 
 At the same time that the Queen was expounding her schemes 
 to Sidney, an alternative proposition was being put forward 
 by Sir Francis Knollys, the Vice-Chamberlain, which savoured 
 
 * Elizabeth to Sidney, July, 1507. 
 42
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 48 
 
 strongly of Cusack. This was that the Scots should be given 
 a grant of the O' Neils' territories if they could annex them by 
 force, and if they would themselves evacuate Antrim and 
 leave it free to be planted with English.* A sort of com- 
 promise between the two schemes was eventually agreed to, 
 and the task of conducting the preliminary negotiations was 
 entrusted to Captain Piers, the Constable of Carrickfergus, 
 who was always a great favourite with the Queen, having 
 helped her on one thrilling occasion before her accession to 
 escape from the blood-thirsty clutches of her sister Mary. 
 This sturdy old soldier subsequently much abused by Essex 
 displayed considerable diplomatic skill over the business, 
 and so worked upon the better feelings of Sorley Boy, who 
 had recently landed at the Glynns, that the Scot agreed to a 
 peace till May, 1568, up to which date he undertook to evacuate 
 north-east Antrim, and to leave himself in the hands of Her 
 Majesty. This, as a matter of fact, was no small concession, 
 for Sorley Boy had only just landed with seven hundred men 
 when Captain Piers started his overtures. By the terms of the 
 agreement, Rathlin Island, off the north-east coast of Antrim, 
 was to be left in Sorley Boy's hands till some more permanent 
 settlement had been agreed upon. Piers, without waiting to 
 consult the Dublin authorities, took upon himself the responsi- 
 bility of setting his seal upon this arrangement, which was 
 set out in writing and signed by both parties, Sorley Boy's 
 signature being guided by a friendly hand. 
 
 In view of future very unpleasant developments, it must be 
 conceded that Sorley Boy faithfully carried out his side of the 
 bargain, so far as he was personally concerned. He withdrew 
 from the mainland to Rathlin Island, but he did not take 
 back his 700 Scots, who probably refused to return in face 
 of the many tempting offers with which they were approached 
 from all sides. There was, in fact, a brisk competition for 
 their services among the various Ulster chiefs. Eventually 
 Tirlough Luineach secured 300, and Rory Oge McQuillin and 
 O'Donnell divided the rest between them.'}" 
 
 It was perhaps owing to the retention of this formidable 
 body of Scots in Ulster that the Queen was filled with certain 
 misgivings as to the bona fides of Sorley Boy's assurances. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, July, 1567. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Jan. 1568,
 
 44 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 No sooner was the Scot safely in Rathlin Island than she 
 ordered two frigates and a barque to patrol the coast, to 
 frustrate any inclination he might show to change his mind 
 and pay a visit to the mainland.* This precaution was pro- 
 bably inspired by a report that Sorley Boy's brother Alexander 
 was in Cantyre with 1,200 men, and with sufficient boats to 
 bring them all over to Ireland. The rumour was probably a 
 false one, and, in any case, no such attempt was made. Up to 
 April, 1568, Elizabeth's garrisons remained in peaceable and 
 undisputed occupation of the Route and Glynns. In the 
 meanwhile the Scots occupied not only the spring but the 
 whole of the summer in fighting one another in the Cantyre 
 district, and, so engrossed did they become with their own 
 domestic dissensions, that it was actually four years from the 
 date of his agreement with Captain Piers before Sorley Boy 
 once more set foot on the mainland of Ulster. 
 
 Having thus got rid temporarily of the Scots, thanks to the 
 diplomatic efforts of Captain Piers, for which he was much 
 commended by the Queen, Sir William Fitzwilliam, who had 
 succeeded Sidney as Deputy in the autumn of 1567, now turned 
 his attention to the native Chiefs. His first dealings were natur- 
 ally with the new O'Neil, Tirlough Luineach, so called from his 
 having been fostered with one of the O'Luiney sept. This 
 chieftain had lost not a moment in having himself invested at 
 Tullahogue with the usual " brutish ceremonies " so strongly 
 denounced by Sidney. Politically he was as yet an unknown 
 quantity, the only outstanding feature of his career so far having 
 been the murder of young Brian O'Neil, which was an act which 
 few of his contemporaries would reckon to his prejudice. He 
 was fifteen years the junior of Shane, belonging, in fact, to a 
 younger generation, for his grandfather had been brother to 
 Shane's father. He was the son of Neil Connelly O'Neil and 
 of the widow of Dermot O'Cleary, who, before her marriage, had 
 been Rose McManus O'Donnell. Little was known of him 
 beyond that he was, by common consent, a far more formidable 
 warrior in the field than his predecessor Shane had been. In 
 fact, Tirlough Luineach for some years past had acted as 
 Shane's military leader. 
 
 The new O'Neil proved most amenable. He suavely ac- 
 cepted the Queen's ruling that McMahon, Magennis, Maguire 
 
 * Queen to Sidney, Aug. 1567.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 45 
 
 and O'Hanlon were to be independent of his overlordship, 
 as well as the further and even more crushing ultimatum 
 that lie was to share the O'Neil territories with the much- 
 petted Baron of Dungannon. This most unwelcome clause in 
 the agreement provided that Dungannon was to have the 
 southern half of Tyrone and Tirlough Luineach the northern 
 half, with the mountain of Mullaghcarn acting as a rough 
 boundary between the two divisions. Tirlough Luiaeach 
 who was evidently in a generous mood also agreed to assist 
 the Queen with all his strength against the Scots, should these 
 again attempt a landing on the Antrim coast. 
 
 Tirlough Luineach according to the evidence of his chroni- 
 clers, and of such of the English as came in close contact with 
 him was an easy-going man of amiable disposition and of very 
 modest ambitions. He was accounted a good warrior on occa- 
 sions, but was too fond of eating and drinking to make any 
 permanent mark as a soldier. Sir Nicholas Bagenal describes 
 him as " a facile and brittle man, without ambitions," and this 
 description tallies with the character given him by the various 
 Irish Annalists. Terence Donnelly, Dean of Armagh, wrote to 
 Cecil that the new O'Neil was " a savage but timorous man,"* 
 which in modern English may be translated as " uneducated 
 and unenterprising," for timorous in the sense of cowardly he 
 certainly was not. Although unambitious as a politician, he 
 cannot be accused of undue diffidence in pushing his matri- 
 monial interests ; for he first of all proposed for the hand of 
 Lady Bagenal's sister, and, when Sir Nicholas scornfully in- 
 formed him that he would sooner see his sister-in-law burnt,"]" 
 he transferred his attentions to Lady Agnes Campbell, whom he 
 eventually after much solicitation succeeded in leading to 
 the altar. Never did bridegroom strike a better bargain. This, 
 however, was not till later. 
 
 The evacuation by the Scots of the Route and Glynns for a 
 period of four years gave the Queen all the opportunity she 
 could possibly have desired for carrying out her colonization 
 scheme, but she failed to take advantage of it. The financing 
 of the enterprise was no simple matter ; nor was it easy to find 
 settlers of the right class who would venture their all in the way 
 of materials, goods and personal safety in such a hazardous 
 
 * Dean of Armagh to Cecil, Oct. 5th, 15(57. 
 f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 22-36-5.
 
 46 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 experiment. The vacated lands remained to a large extent 
 unoccupied between the years 1567 and 1572. In the absence 
 of the Scots, Sir Brian McPhelim O'Neil, the lord of North 
 Clandeboye, scoured the whole country as far as the Bann for 
 any livestock the McDonnells might have left behind ;* and 
 the sept of the McQuillins, who claimed that their title to the 
 Route was older than that of the McDonnells, naturally seized 
 the opportunity to reoccupy the lands from which they had been 
 gradually pushed by the encroachments of the Scots. 
 
 In the meanwhile Tirlough Luineach was scarcely keeping up 
 the traditional reputation of the O'Neils for turbulence. His 
 first attempt to assert his dignity had been in 1568, when he had 
 sent a raiding expedition, under Shane's eldest grandson, Con 
 Boy McHenry, into McMahon's country. The main object 
 of this raid was to make it clear to McMahon that Tirlough 
 Luineach' s renunciation of his overlordship of Monaghan in 
 favour of the Queen had been merely a polite formality. He 
 failed, however, to create the effect intended, for the invading 
 party was very badly defeated, and Con Boy who could not 
 have been more than fifteen years old at the time was killed,^ 
 together with 300 of his men. Discouraged by this failure, 
 Tirlough Luineach remained uneventfully quiet for a year and 
 a half in his newly-built Castle of Dunalong, on the east shore 
 of the Foyle, from which sanctuary he dispatched periodical 
 appeals to Lady Agnes Campbell to marry him. His first act 
 of open hostility to the Government was in August, 1569, 
 when he made a successful raid on Newry and carried off 3,000 
 cattle belonging to Sir Nicholas Bagenal and the Dean of 
 Armagh. He had not forgotten the Marshal's insulting 
 message with regard to his sister-in-law. Having thus to a 
 certain extent wiped out the insult by leaving the Marshal 
 meatless, he completed his triumph by hurrying across to 
 Rathlin Island and there marrying the much-sought-for Lady 
 Agnes, widow of James McDonnell. 
 
 Tirlough Luineach spent a fortnight on the island to celebrate 
 this important union between the clans of O'Neil and McDonnell. 
 The Earl of Argyle sent him a taffeta hat set with bugles as a 
 wedding -present, and there was 'much joyous carousing. J The 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 24-38-2. 
 t Cal. State Papers, May, 1568. 
 J Fitzwilliam to Cecil, Sept. 1569.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 4T 
 
 alliance between the two families was still further cemented 
 by the marriage at the same time of Tirlough Luineach's eldest 
 son Henry to Lady Agnes's third daughter, the elder two, 
 Catherine and Ineenduv, having already married Shane O'Neil 
 and Hugh O'Donnell. Jty this skilful tactical move Tirlough 
 Luineach enormously increased his political power. The 
 McDonnells were under tacit agreement with Elizabeth not to 
 interfere with her Plantation schemes by asserting any terri- 
 torial rights in north-east Antrim, but there was nothing to 
 prevent the wife of the O'Neil from having in her pay as many 
 Scots as she chose to enlist. According to Fitzwilliam, Lady 
 Agnes brought some 3,000 fighting Scots to the O'Neil as her 
 marriage portion, but even this number was not considered 
 enough, and in March of the following year she went over to 
 Cantyre to complete arrangements for a further consignment. 
 Her son James, however, who was now Lord of the Isles, took 
 anything but a favourable view of this last development, which 
 would have had the effect of partially denuding Cantyre of its 
 fighting strength, and his mother was kindly but firmly detained 
 in Scotland till her ambitions had assumed more modest limits. 
 In the meanwhile Elizabeth's Plantation scheme, though 
 slow in materializing, was by no means dead. It was taken up 
 once more with some enthusiasm by the original promoter, 
 Sir Thomas Smith. After many months of protracted negotia- 
 tions, this enterprising land-speculator was given a grant, not 
 of the much-discussed Route and Glynns, but of the more 
 accessible districts of Ards and Lough Strangford. This was 
 in the early months of 1572. Smith was naturally of the land- 
 adventurer class, and it is not to be supposed that his principles 
 were higher than those of others of his profession. At the same 
 time, his letters give evidence of good intentions, real or simu- 
 lated. He wrote a long letter to Sidney, expressing generous 
 hopes for the speedy betterment of social conditions in the 
 country to which he contemplated migrating. His enterprise, 
 he was careful to explain, was not designed " to destroy the 
 Irish race, but to teach them to leave off robbing, stealing and 
 killing one another."* He had already paved the way for his 
 proposed reformation of Ulster society by a courteous letter 
 which he had written to Sir Brian McPhelim. To this truculent 
 chief he volunteered the information that he was coming to 
 * Sir Thomas Smith to Sidney, Nov. 1572.
 
 48 
 
 live in his part of the world, and expressed the hope that they 
 would prove good friends and neighbours.* Sir Brian, as a 
 matter of fact, had no legitimate jurisdiction over the country 
 which Smith was preparing to Plant. This belonged by hered- 
 itary right to Con McNeil Oge, a turbulent and bloodthirsty 
 chief, who, at the moment, was a prisoner in Dublin Castle. 
 In fact it was mainly because of this chief's safe incarceration 
 that his country had been, in the end, selected for Planting in 
 preference to the Antrim lands further north, originally contem- 
 plated. Smith's conciliatory letter to Sir Brian was dictated 
 by the following considerations. Sir Brian's own lands proper 
 lay in North Clandeboye on the far side of Carrickfergus Bay. 
 On the imprisonment of Con McNeil Oge, he had at once usurped 
 possession of all that chief's lands in South Clandeboye, as well 
 as of Killultagh (Upper Massareene), of which he now styled 
 himself the Captain. He was, therefore, at the time of Smith's 
 expedition, the rightful lord of North Clandeboye, and the lord 
 by usurpation of South Clandeboye (Castlereagh), which latter 
 district was perilously close to Smith's new grant of the 
 Ards. 
 
 Sir Brian, not being able to write, made no reply to Smith's 
 polite overtures, but he took his own measures, and promptly. 
 What those measures were will be seen in due course. 
 
 In this connection it may not be amiss to take a glance at 
 a Scotch invasion, in the same part of the world, which had 
 just preceded that of Sir Thomas Smith. Sorley Boy, after 
 nearly four years' absence from Ireland, had landed in Ulster 
 in March, 1571, with 700 men, of whom he left 300 in the Glynns, 
 under the command of his son, Donald Gorm, while the remain- 
 ing 400, under Alexander McRandall Boy, continued their 
 course down the coast, and ultimately landed in the Ards. 
 The object of this last move is not quite clear. There is certain 
 presumptive evidence that the Scots came at the instigation of 
 Sir Brian, with the idea of intimidating Smith and possibly of 
 deterring him from his contemplated venture. The fact that 
 300 men were left in the Glynns suggests strongly that the 
 McDonnells were not yet assured that the Plantation scheme 
 was going to be confined to the Ards. As soon, however, as 
 they realized that this was the case, and that the Route and the 
 Glynns were not going to be interfered with, they withdrew 
 
 * Sir Thomas Smith to Sjr Brian McPhelim, May, 1572
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 49 
 
 from the Ards and retired to their own exclusive district in the 
 north-east. 
 
 It is interesting to note that there was no opposition on the 
 part of the Irish on this occasion, or, indeed, at any other time, 
 to invasions of Scotch Highlanders from across the water. The 
 Irish and the Highlanders were alike Celts of somewhat kindred 
 habits and language. Both the one and the other professed 
 the Roman Catholic religion. The Highlanders amalgamated 
 easily with the Irish natives, and the aristocracy of both races, 
 as we have seen, intermarried freely. Where there is no reli- 
 gious antagonism, the mergement of contiguous races of the 
 same colour is usually rapid. The moment, however, that there 
 was a question of an English Plantation an entirely different 
 feeling was noticeable. Here for the first time the religious 
 question intruded on the Ulster problem. The English were 
 Protestants, and as such cut off from association with both 
 Irish and Highland Scotch. It was felt that this common foe 
 must be kept out of the country at all costs, and for this purpose 
 an alliance offensive and defensive was temporarily formed 
 between Sorley Boy and Brian McPhelim. The latter, in a 
 last despairing effort to stave off the English invasion, wrote 
 (or procured to be written) an explanatory letter to Fitzwilliam, 
 in which he gloomily predicted that Antrim and Down would 
 never support men of English descent, being all bog where it was 
 not hazel or holly scrub. Furthermore, he affirmed that Sorley 
 Boy had done, and was doing, all that was needful for the 
 country in the way of agricultural improvement, having in 
 point of fact already introduced more ploughs into that part 
 of the world than had been seen there for the past hundred 
 years.* 
 
 Fitzwilliam, as may be supposed, paid little attention to 
 arguments which were clearly interested, and the preliminary 
 stages of the proposed colonization scheme were concluded 
 without further hitch. There was no difficulty whatever as 
 between Smith and Henry Savage, who, as the existing repre- 
 sentative of the earliest English settlers in the Ards, was clearly 
 entitled to some voice in the proposed arrangement. Savage, 
 as a matter of fact, welcomed the idea of a more settled and 
 civilised population around him. He was the first to greet young 
 Tom Smith (representing his father) on his arrival at Lough 
 
 * Sir Brian McPhelim to Deputy, March, 1571. 
 
 4
 
 50 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Strangford on August 31st, 1572, and accompanied the young 
 settler from the landing-place to Newtown-Ards, which Smith 
 proposed to make his headquarters for the time being. Brian 
 McPhelim was not equally cordial. He, and his band of wild 
 horsemen, hung upon the skirts of the incoming settlers all the 
 way from Lough Strangford to Newtown-Ards, and, after a 
 few days, his attitude became so threatening that Smith thought 
 it best to shift his quarters to Carrickfergus, where there was 
 always the Castle into which the garrison could retire if hard 
 pressed. His withdrawal, as the event proved, was only just 
 in time. He had barely got clear of the district before Sir 
 Brian and the Baron's two sons, Cormac and Art, swept down 
 on the Ards, murdered poor Henry Savage, presumably on 
 account of his friendliness towards Smith, and burned all the 
 surrounding country, including Newtown-Ards, Meville, Bangor 
 and Hollywood.* 
 
 Having registered his protest against an English settlement 
 in his own peculiar way, Sir Brian promptly sued for peace, 
 being appreciably influenced in this direction by the approach 
 to the Dufferin, by way of Lecale, of the Marshal and 100 
 horsemen. The Government treated with proper contempt 3 
 petition which was clearly influenced by fear and not by friend - 
 liness, but, on the other hand, no drastic steps were taken to 
 punish Sir Brian for his late outrage. Captain Piers was away 
 at the time, and Smith was too busy looking after his settlers 
 and too generally incompetent to attempt active hostilities. 
 
 This youthful adventurer had, in fact, so far shown neither 
 tact nor ability. Captain Piers, the Constable, was in England 
 at the time when Smith shifted his quarters from Newtown- 
 Ards to Carrickfergus, and in his absence the newcomer took 
 upon himself the command of the place, and acted generally 
 in a very high-handed and overbearing manner. His first 
 attempt at an administrative act was to forbid the townspeople 
 to trade with the natives.^ This ill-advised act was the cause 
 of very general consternation. The townsmen wrote in great 
 distress to Fitzwilliam, complaining that the enforcement of the 
 edict would place them on the high road to ruin, and petitioning 
 his interference. Before, however, any interference was 
 possible, young Smith had added so heavily to the sum of his 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Oct. 1572. 
 
 f McSkimmin's " History of Carrickfergus."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 51 
 
 offences that the first complaint was lost sight of in the mass of 
 later charges. To begin with, he seized upon all the town cattle 
 for the use of his troops, and, when the townspeople very 
 naturally protested that this would reduce them to starvation, 
 he allowed them to redeem such cattle as he did not require by 
 a payment of 4d. per head, on the condition that they threw 
 into the bargain twenty hogsheads of barley and ten hogsheads 
 of malt.* The poor townsmen had no option but to agree, 
 and Smith, having in this way satisfactorily provided both meat 
 and beer for his men, marched off on a prospecting expedition 
 with the entire garrison, leaving the town quite unprotected. 
 This was, of course, Sir Brian's opportunity, and, almost before 
 Smith and the garrison were out of sight, he rode in and pillaged 
 and burned the town. 
 
 The endurance no less than the courage of the townsmen was 
 now all but exhausted. Their actual lives, it is true, were not 
 in danger ; for on the approach of the Irish they could always 
 retire into the Queen's Castle, which stood on the tongue of 
 land jutting out into the sea, and which was so strongly walled 
 as to be impregnable ; but they had no means of protecting 
 their houses and property, whose only defence lay in a mud 
 rampart and ditch. Without a garrison this could by no means 
 be manned, and it therefore seemed waste of labour to renovate 
 their gutted houses. In these deplorable circumstances, the 
 townspeople resolved that the altered conditions in Carrick- 
 fergus rendered further life there impossible, and they deter- 
 mined to migrate in a body to the Pale. Just, however, as the 
 caravan was on the point of setting out, a report reached Carrick- 
 fergus which was no less exciting than it was welcome. It 
 was said that Sir Thomas Smith's grant had been revoked, or 
 rather that it had been transferred to the Earl of Essex, who was 
 on the point of sailing for Carrickfergus with a strong force of 
 English. The report was in substance true. It had been recog- 
 nized both in London and Dublin that Smith was quite un- 
 fitted for the task he had undertaken. He was without the 
 military capacity to make any impression, physical or moral, 
 on the natives, and, on the other hand, he had effectually suc- 
 ceeded in alienating the sympathy of the English by his high- 
 handed seizure of their property and general assumption of 
 authority. 
 
 * McSkimmin's " History of Carrickfergus." 
 
 4*
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Transfer of Smith's grant to Essex Rathlin Island included Arrival of Essex 
 Hugh Bacon of Dungannon His early training and education Essex's 
 dealings with Tirlough Luineach Con McNeil Boy Murder of Thomas 
 Smith Neil McBrian Feartagh Fitzwilliam's hostility to Essex He 
 diverts his food supplies Sir Brian's submission His treacherous con- 
 duct Indignation of Essex Sir Brian proclaimed traitor Mortality among 
 the Carrickfergus garrison Essex's plans He recommends the granting 
 of the Glynns to Sorley Boy Con McNeil escapes from Dublin Castle 
 Essex's arrangement with Con Con occupies Carrickfergus Plight of the 
 townsmen Sorley Boy to the rescue Brian Ballough Elizabeth's fear 
 of the Ulster Scots Hostility of the Ulster Chiefs to Essex. 
 
 WALTER DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX, had for 
 many years past had his eye on the possibilities of 
 land speculation in Ireland, and, being in high favour with the 
 Queen, had little difficulty in prevailing on her to transfer 
 Smith's grant to himself, with certain extensions. Smith him- 
 self had by this time realized his failure and general unfitness 
 for the undertaking, and was not sorry to see the main burden 
 of the new settlement placed on other shoulders. His only 
 stipulation was that he should be allowed to remain in the Ards 
 as long as he wished, which was agreed. 
 
 Essex's scheme was in large part financed by the Queen, 
 who lent him 10,000 for the purpose on the security of his 
 estates in Essex and Bucks. It was a far more ambitious effort 
 than Smith's, for Essex was armed with an elastic commission 
 as Governor of Ulster, and with a grant which practically in- 
 cluded the whole of modern Antrim and Down, with the excep- 
 . tion of 1,000 acres round Carrickfergus. The fishings on the 
 Bann and on Lough Neagh were also granted him, as well as 
 the Island of Rathlin. 
 
 It is difficult to justify Elizabeth's inclusion of Rathlin 
 Island in this grant of hers to Essex. In the original agreement, 
 ratified on behalf of the Government by Captain Piers, Rathlin 
 Island which had very little agricultural value had been 
 definitely assigned to Sorley Boy. The Scot had more than 
 
 52
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 53 
 
 carried out his side of the contract, for, whereas he had only 
 bound himself to evacuate the mainland for a few months so as 
 to give the colonization scheme a fair chance of success, he had 
 in actual practice remained absent for no less than four years. 
 Under these circumstances the inclusion of the island in the 
 grant had all the appearance of a flagrant breach of faith, and 
 it was to provide a justification for one of the most horrid 
 tragedies in the history of Ulster. 
 
 Essex arrived early in September, 1573, with a convoy the 
 like of which Ulster had never yet seen. He brought with him 
 600 foot, 200 horse, 100 labourers and 400 adventurers, and was 
 accompanied by Lord Rich (his son-in-law), Lord Darcy, Sir 
 Henry Knollys, and three of Lord Norris's six sons.* The 
 appearance of this reassuring array stayed the stampede from 
 Carrickfergus, but raised food difficulties, which for a time 
 threatened to checkmate the entire scheme ; for the Director 
 for Supplies, one Dominick Chester, proved two months late 
 in his delivery, pleading the usual excuse of contrary winds, 
 but according to popular rumour having been prompted to the 
 delay by the malignity of Fitzwilliam, the Lord Deputy. 
 
 Elizabeth was always quick to adapt chance circumstances 
 to the peculiar needs of the moment, and by her express desire 
 Hugh O'Neil, the young Baron of Dungannon, was now attached 
 to the staff of the new Governor, her idea in this being to con- 
 tinue the association of the future Earl of Tyrone with English 
 noblemen of high position and civilizing influence. Elizabeth 
 attached immense importance to the maintenance of an atmo- 
 sphere of English culture round this wild Celtic shoot. Young 
 Hugh had been assiduously reared among English surround- 
 ings ; first at Sir Henry Sidney's beautiful home at Penshurst, 
 and later on with the Earl of Leicester. The exact date on which 
 he was taken over to England is uncertain, but it was un- 
 questionably very early in his career, for Sidney says that he 
 had him in his charge " from a little boy, though very poor of 
 goods and full feebly friended. "f Dungannon himself corro- 
 borates this in a letter to Elizabeth, in which he refers to himself 
 at the time of his father's death in 1558 as " an infant of tender 
 age and in your Highness's ward."J These two statements 
 
 
 
 * McSkimmin's " History of Carrickfergus." 
 t Sidney to Walsingham, March 1st, 1583. 
 t Carew MSS.
 
 54 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 would seem to place Hugh's age. in 1558 at not more than ten, 
 and though his birth is commonly reckoned to have been in 
 1540, he must in reality have been born quite eight years later. 
 
 Brian had been several years older than Hugh, and it had 
 been with a view to comparing the relative merits of the two 
 brothers that Elizabeth had sent for Brian in 1562 a summons 
 which, as it turned out, proved his death-warrant. With the 
 death of the elder brother, Elizabeth's educational efforts were 
 more than ever concentrated on the second son. He was sent 
 to Oxford, and provided with a suitable equipage, with which he 
 was used to flaunt it in the streets of London, all at the Queen's 
 expense. At the time of Shane's death, in 1567, Hugh's age 
 according to this reckoning would have been nineteen, an age 
 which fits in harmoniously with all the known facts. He had 
 little following in Ireland. His English education, English 
 habits, English speech and English patronage procured him but 
 slight favour in his own country, and Tirlough Luineach was 
 elected as the O'Neil with the unanimous voice of Tyrone. Then, 
 for a time, Hugh made his residence with Sir Nicholas Bagenal 
 at Newry, and in fact remained under the wing of the old Marshal 
 till the date of Essex's arrival, when, in conformity with the 
 Queen's wishes, he was transferred to the Governor's staff. 
 
 The two Chiefs whose co-operation was most essential to the 
 success of Essex's scheme were, first of all, Tirlough Luineach, 
 as the most prominent representative of the old feudal system 
 in Ulster, and secondly, Sir Brian McPhelim, the head of the 
 Clandeboye O' Neils, who, either by virtue of inheritance or 
 piracy, was in possession of most of the lands over which Essex's 
 grant extended. Tirlough Luineach though very strong 
 since his marriage had, by the advice of his wife, so far steered 
 clear of serious complications with the Government, though 
 always in 'a hostile camp to the Government protege, the Baron 
 of Dungannon. Essex wrote him a friendly and conciliatory 
 letter, in which he laid special emphasis on the fact that his 
 main object in coming to Ulster was to expel the Scots, and that 
 this was a worthy enterprise in which he and Tirlough Luineach 
 were equally interested, and in which they might well and advan- 
 tageously co-operate.* The tenour of this letter was, in fact, 
 inspired by the Queen herself, who had lately taken into her 
 head quite erroneously the idea that the disloyalty of the 
 
 * Essex to Tirlough Luineach, Sept. 18th, 1573.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 55 
 
 Irish was in a large part due to her failure to defend them from 
 the encroachments of the Scots.* Whether this idea was put 
 into her head by Piers or by Fenton is not on record, but it is 
 quite clear that it took a strong hold on her imagination, more 
 especially as it fell smoothly in line with her own anti-Scotch 
 prejudices. 
 
 While awaiting a reply from Tirlough Luineach, Essex made 
 some special efforts towards coming to an understanding with 
 his truculent neighbour, Sir Brian McPhelim. This Brian was 
 a younger brother of Hugh McPhelim, at the time a prisoner in 
 Dublin Castle, and they were both the sons of old Phelim 
 Bacagh, who was directly descended from the great Hugh Boy 
 O'Neil, Lord of Clandeboye. The proper inheritance of Phelim 
 Bacagh' s sons was North Clandeboye, i.e., the modern Baronies 
 of Upper and Lower Antrim, while South Clandeboye and Killu- 
 tagh had descended to Con McNeil Oge, who was also a scion 
 of the line of Hugh Boy O'Neil. Con, however, as has already 
 been explained, was in Dublin Castle at the time, and Sir Brian, 
 taking advantage of his absence, had usurped authority over 
 the whole district surrounding Carrickfergus Bay. The claims 
 of both Brian McPhelim and of Con McNeil Oge to their respec- 
 tive lands had been officially recognized and ratified by Croft, 
 so that, from the first, it was evident that Essex's charter was 
 here on very delicate ground. Essex's claim was that Brian 
 had forfeited his rights by the murder of Savage, the burning 
 of Ards, and the previous murder during a friendly parley of a 
 certain Mr. Moore. He found fresh ground for assailing Brian's 
 title in an incident which occurred shortly after his landing. 
 This was the murder of young Tom Smith. A good deal of 
 uncertainty surrounds the actual deed and its causes. Essex, 
 in a letter to the Privy Council, says that Smith was murdered 
 by some Irish servants of his household whom he much trusted. "j" 
 Cox, on the other hand, in his " Hibernia Anglicana " accuses 
 Neil McBrian Feartagh of the deed. This last-named chief 
 was another of the many descendants of Hugh Boy O'Neil, and 
 one who contended that his hereditary claims to South Clande- 
 boye were stronger than those of Con McNeil Oge. Subse- 
 quent events suggest that Cox's version of the affair is wrong, 
 for Neil McBrian Feartagh was afterwards received into strong 
 
 * Essex to Burleigh, July 20th, 1573. 
 t Essex to Privy Council, Oct. 1573,
 
 56 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Government favour, was established in the lordship of South 
 Clandeboye after the death of Con McNeil Oge, and throughout 
 Tyrone's rebellion proved the most loyal of all the Irish chiefs 
 in Down or Antrim. Essex, at any rate, managed to trace 
 the hand of Sir Brian in the affair, a circumstance in which he 
 found an added justification for his invasion of Brian's terri- 
 torial rights. It is quite evident to the modern student of the 
 situation that the tale of Brian's crimes real or imaginary 
 was mainly designed to strengthen Essex's hand in arriving at 
 some sort of a compromise, which he was wise enough to recog- 
 nize was better than a fight. The fighting strength of the 
 English in north-east Ulster had, indeed, been seriously pre- 
 judiced by the extraordinary conduct of the Deputy, Sir William 
 Fitzwilliam, who, for reasons which will presently be under- 
 stood, viewed Essex's commission as Governor of Ulster with the 
 greatest disfavour. He had already made an underhand 
 attempt to starve him out by giving the victuallers a hint that 
 their supplies, destined for the garrisons in Antrim, Down and 
 Armagh, would be more welcome elsewhere ; and now, on the 
 pretext of a shortage of food for which he was himself responsible, 
 he endeavoured to make Essex's position in the north untenable 
 by withdrawing the garrisons from Newry and Armagh. The 
 effect of this spiteful act was as intended to leave Essex 
 so completely isolated that he was forced by the weakness of 
 his position to angle for a friendly compromise which at heart 
 he was far from desiring. Brian was formally invited to meet 
 the Governor for a pacific conference at Kells, and Brian replied 
 that a meeting with his Lordship would be the highest honour 
 he could desire. Accordingly, in April, 1574, Essex, accom- 
 panied by young John Norris, set out for the try sting-place. 
 Nothing could have been humbler or more flattering than the 
 demeanour of the Irish Chief. He admitted his past short- 
 comings, made humble submission, acknowledged Essex's 
 suzerainty, and formally renounced all title to the lands of North 
 Clandeboye.* A letter embodying this satisfactory conclusion 
 was then drafted, signed by Brian (with some assistance), and 
 forwarded to Elizabeth, accompanied by a special recommenda- 
 tion from Essex that the penitent Chief should be granted a full 
 pardon for all his past errors. 
 
 * Brian McPhelim to Queen, May, 1574. See also Essex to Queen, May, 1574,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 57 
 
 Essex was delighted with the success of his diplomatic 
 venture, which made it quite clear to him that Sir Thomas 
 Smith and others had grievously bungled the whole affair, and 
 that only proper tact was required in order to establish friendly 
 relations all round. Sir Peter Carew, who had been sent up to 
 Essex to act as his Lieutenant and Counsellor, warned him 
 against undue optimism ; but the new Governor, who had yet 
 to buy his experience of the country, was not to be discouraged, 
 and in his new sense of security relaxed his guard upon the garri- 
 son cattle. This was, of course, exactly what Sir Brian had been 
 waiting for, and he at once swooped down and carried off an 
 entire herd. Essex's fury knew no bounds. The disillusion 
 was complete, and intensely bitter to a man bred in the school 
 of English chivalry. Never again, he swore in his wrath, would 
 he put faith in such a perfidious people. It would appear that, 
 after his first outburst, Essex soon settled down to a calmer 
 frame of mind. His first feeling had been one of rage ; his 
 second was one of self-congratulation that he had made his 
 discovery of the native character before it was too late ; " for 
 now," he argued, " I have no occasion to trust the Irish, whereby 
 I might have been more abused than by open force. . . . My 
 first actions showed nothing but leniency, plainness and an 
 equal care of both nations ; my next shall show more severity 
 of justice abroad, and less trust at home."* 
 
 It is more than probable that some of Essex's subsequent 
 acts may be explained, though they can never be excused, by 
 this early initiation of his into the ways of the country ; and 
 indeed it is clear, from the above-quoted fragment, that he was 
 bracing himself to the adoption of a far more rigorous policy 
 than he had contemplated on his first arrival. In the search 
 for a guiding hand from among those who had experience of 
 the country, he wrote the painful story of his troubles to the 
 Dublin Privy Council. " The Irish cannot judge of favour," 
 he peevishly protested in commenting on the catastrophe that 
 had crowned his conciliatory efforts. From what we know of 
 the humour of the Privy Council at the time it is not unreason- 
 able to assume that the news of Essex's discomfiture did not 
 cause them unmixed sorrow. In any case, we may be sure that 
 the Lord Deputy chuckled. However, fitting sympathy was 
 expressed, Brian was proclaimed a traitor, and a price of 200 
 
 * Bagwell, Vol. II., p. 295.
 
 58 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 was placed on his head.* Armed with this proclamation, Essex 
 set out to get even with the man who had so grievously fooled 
 him. Brian himself wisely kept out of the way, but Essex had 
 the satisfaction of killing 100 of his people and recovering 400 
 of his cattle. Brian retorted by forbidding the natives to bring 
 any supplies into Carrickfergus. Fitzwilliam, as we know, had 
 already given the victuallers a hint that if they neglected the 
 Ulster garrisons their shortcomings would not be viewed un- 
 favourably. With hostile influences at work from nominal 
 friends no less than from proclaimed foes, it is not surprising 
 that the shortage of food, which had prevailed in a greater 
 or less degree ever since the arrival of Essex's convoy, soon 
 became very acute indeed. Shortage inevitably necessitates 
 the use of improper food, which in its turn generates disease. 
 By the time spring was reached the soldiers were dying at the 
 rate of from fifteen to twenty a day."!" Under the strain of 
 hunger and sickness they became mutinous and refused active 
 service. Many of the mounted men deliberately lamed their 
 horses so as to avoid being called out. 
 
 Such a combination of adverse conditions thoroughly dis- 
 gusted Essex with his headquarters. He complained that the 
 Castle had very few rooms, and that most of these were un- 
 roofed by fires which had taken place at one time or another. 
 The town was very unsanitary and had no common harbour 
 for ships, and, he added, " considering that near unto Belfast is 
 a place meet for a corporate town armed with all commodities 
 and a principal haven, wood and good ground, and a place of 
 great importance for service ; I think it convenient that a forti- 
 fication be made there at the spring." He further suggested the 
 building of bridges over the rivers Lagan and Bann, and that 
 Ligh the engineer should be sent over to construct these. With 
 regard to his four hundred adventurers, his scheme provided 
 that these should build Castles all the way along the coast from 
 Carrickfergus to the Bann, the choice of situation to be decided 
 by lot, and the Castles to be near one another for mutual pro- 
 tection, with the lands pertaining to the Castles running inland. 
 He added the further suggestion that from this coast scheme the 
 Glynns (Carey) should be excluded, and should be settled by 
 
 * Essex to Privy Council, May, 1574. 
 t Essex to Burleigh, May 13th, 1574.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 59 
 
 Royal grant on Sorley Boy, who claimed with some show of 
 justification to trace back his title to the marriage in 1399 of 
 his ancestor, John Mor McDonald, to Margery Bissett, the then 
 owner of the lands.* This proposed arrangement, equitable 
 though it may have been, was hardly in accordance with the 
 principle of expelling all the Scots, to which Essex had bound 
 himself in his agreement with Tirlough Luineach. However, 
 as matters turned out, it was the only part of the proposed 
 scheme which took effect, though by no means with the sanction 
 or approval of the Queen. Essex's only other request was 
 that he might have the custody of Hugh McPhelim (Sir Brian's 
 elder brother) and of Con McNeil Oge, both of whom were 
 prisoners at the time in Dublin Castle. This last was equivalent 
 to a request for money, or for money's worth, for imprisoned 
 chiefs were always exchangeable for cash, and were indeed 
 seldom imprisoned except for the purpose of such exchange. 
 Fitzwilliam could hardly, with decency, refuse the transfer, 
 for both the chiefs very clearly belonged to Essex's district, 
 but he took good care to arrange no doubt for a consideration 
 - for Con McNeil Oge's escape before the transfer could be 
 completed. Hugh McPhelim, however, passed safely into the 
 custody of the Ulster Governor. Con's escape from Dublin 
 Castle was, beyond all question, part of Fitzwilliam's general 
 plan for embarrassing Essex and defeating his Plantation 
 schemes, and no doubt Essex read it as such. He was shrewd 
 enough, however, to turn the new situation as far as possible 
 to his own advantage in the following way. 
 
 The sons of Phelim Bacagh had been assigned the lands 
 of North Clandeboye by Croft in 1555, at the time when Hugh 
 McNeil Oge (Con's elder brother) had been killed by the Scots, 
 Con at the same time being assigned South Clandeboye and 
 Killultagh. No sooner, however, had Con disappeared within 
 the walls of Dublin Castle than Sir Brian coolly annexed the 
 whole of his lands, and held them by the primitive argument 
 of the sword. In the outraged and dispossessed Con McNeil 
 Oge, then, Essex saw a convenient instrument of destruction 
 ready to his hand. No sooner was the foot of the newly- 
 released chief once more on his native heath than Essex came 
 forward with a proposal to reinstate him in his old possessions, 
 and to support his occupation with the English troops, if Con 
 * Hill's " McDonnells of Antrim."
 
 60 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 would make his title good by killing Brian. Nothing could 
 have suited Con better, and he closed with the offer without 
 stopping to bargain. The opportunity for carrying out his 
 side of the agreement soon presented itself, for, within a week, 
 he reported to Essex that he had reliable information to the 
 effect that Brian was meditating a raid on Carrickfergus. 
 Nothing, in point of fact, was more probable, for Essex had 
 long since wearied of the short supplies and discomforts of 
 C&rrickfergus, and had transferred himself and the bulk of 
 his troops to more comfortable quarters at Newry, where ample 
 accommodation had been left vacant by Fitzwilliam's with- 
 drawal of the old garrison. The Carrickfergus townsmen, 
 therefore, were very nearly as defenceless as when Smith had 
 left them without a garrison two years before. Con's sug- 
 gestion was that he should introduce 200 of his men within 
 the town precincts, and that, when Brian incautiously rode 
 in, under the delusion that he had only a few unarmed burghers 
 to deal with, Con and his 200 men should rise up and fall upon 
 him. 
 
 The townsmen were delighted with the idea, for the thought 
 of Brian's head grinning on the Castle gate was inexpressibly 
 sweet to them. When the moment arrived, Con and his men 
 were duly introduced and distributed about in the various 
 scattered houses. The plan, as made out, was an admirable 
 one, the only flaw in it being that Brian did not come, and 
 in all probability had never even thought of coming. Con, 
 however, had by his well-considered ruse, gained admission 
 to the town, and, having done so, had no intention of quitting 
 before he had made the most of such good things as were to be 
 got out of the situation. The unfortunate townsmen were 
 gradually eaten bare. Seeing no hope of ever getting rid of 
 their visitor, they managed one dark night to let a horseman 
 secretly out of the town, who galloped to Sorley Boy, at Glen- 
 arm, with the offer of 20 in wine, silk and saffron, if he would 
 come and turn the intruder out. Sorley Boy did not need 
 asking twice, and the very next day rode in to the rescue, but 
 Con had somehow got the news of his approach, and he and 
 his 200 men made off in haste before the Scots arrived on the 
 scene.* 
 i The next experience of the unfortunate townsmen was 
 
 * McSkimmin's " History of Carrickfergus."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 61 
 
 less happy, and dearly they must have longed for the good 
 Captain Piers and his protective arm to be once more among 
 them. The calamity which overtook them was this : Brian 
 Ballough, one of the minor brigand-chiefs of the district, came 
 down and carried off an entire herd of cattle which the towns- 
 men had recently bargained for and bought. As this loss 
 meant the renewal of the very serious privations which they 
 had recently undergone, the townsmen sent a deputation to 
 Brian, offering him their only marketable commodities, to wit, 
 wine, silk and saffron, as a ransom for their cattle. Brian 
 Ballough agreed to the exchange, and the goods were dispatched, 
 but, in the plaintive language of the unfortunate townsmen, 
 " the said traitor drank the same wine, and received the same 
 saffron and silk, and restored not one of the cattle back again, 
 but cruelly handled the poor men who went with the same 
 to him."** 
 
 Walter, Earl of Essex, though in high favour with the 
 Queen, proved himself little better fitted to deal with the 
 native chiefs than had his predecessor. He was rash, im- 
 petuous and high-handed, and he was guilty of the fatal error 
 of arguing that the treacherous practices of those with whom 
 he was dealing justified him in having recourse to the same 
 methods. His original Plantation scheme had foundered 
 early in the day, owing to the gradual disillusionment of the 
 unfortunate adventurers. These found, as many had found 
 before them, and as many more were destined to find in later 
 days, that the state of affairs in Ireland was very different 
 from what they had been given to understand before they 
 sailed. Instead of a friendly population welcoming an influx 
 of capital to their country, they found the natives suspicious 
 and furtively hostile. The recent murders of Henry Savage 
 and of young Tom Smith were not calculated to increase their 
 sense of security, and by every English-bound ship that touched 
 at Carrickfergus some of the disappointed adventurers managed 
 to slip away from the perilous country to which they had been 
 inveigled. Others shipped down to the Pale. Already the 
 doom of the proposed settlement was sealed. If only the 
 Queen had listened to the advice of Essex, and of Sussex before 
 him, and had made friends with the Scots, and officially granted 
 to Sorley Boy the peaceable possession of the Glynns, all might 
 
 * Carew MSS., 1578, 114
 
 62 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 have beeri Well. The new adventurers would then have had 
 the advantage of a powerful ally in their very midst, who 
 would have been of inestimable service to them during the 
 construction of their Castles. So obsessed, however, was 
 Elizabeth with her insensate hatred and jealousy of every- 
 thing pertaining to Mary Queen of Scots, that she was blind 
 both to her own interests and to those of her unfortunate 
 subjects whom she had persuaded to embark on the Irish 
 venture. Her natural prejudices were strengthened by the 
 advice of Captain Piers, at that time over in England. Piers 
 was interviewed by the Queen, and gave it as his opinion that 
 there was a conspiracy between Tir lough Luineach's wife, 
 O'Donnell's wife, and Sorley Boy, to convert Ulster into a 
 Scotch province. This view was shared by Sir Nicholas Maltby, 
 another veteran seasoned in Irish wars, for we find him writing 
 to Leicester as late as 1580 to the effect that Lady Agnes had 
 it in her mind " to make a second Scotland of Ulster."* A 
 certain amount of colour was lent to these stories by the alarm- 
 ing number of Highlanders in the province at the time. They 
 practically represented the entire fighting strength of Ulster, 
 and each chief's power was mainly gauged by the number of 
 these hardy warriors whom he could afford to keep in his 
 train. Tirlough Luineach's wife, Lady Agnes, was now said 
 to have 4,000 in her service a figure which may safely be 
 halved. Her daughter, Ineenduv, now the wife of O'Donnell, 
 had disquieting numbers in her own pay, and facilities for 
 adding to these at will. The above were chiefly Campbells 
 and McLeans, and they therefore in no way diminished the 
 reserves of the McDonnells in Cantyre, on whom Sorley Boy 
 could draw at will. All the potentialities of the situation were 
 pointed out to the Queen, who decided perhaps not un- 
 naturally, but most unfortunately as it turned out not to 
 sanction the grant of the Glynns to Sorley Boy. By this 
 short-sighted ultimatum the old McDonnell was converted 
 from a potential ally into a bitter and implacable enemy, and 
 the death-warrant of the proposed Plantation scheme was 
 signed and sealed. 
 
 Essex, greatly disappointed at the failure of his recommenda- 
 tion, complained with perfect justice that " all Ulster was now 
 confederate against him, and there was a common voice against 
 
 * Sir N. Maltby to Leicester, Aug. 17th, 1580.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 68 
 
 the English Plantation."* The Chieis, in justification of 
 their unfriendly attitude, gave out that the enterprise was 
 not for the Queen's honour, but for the private profit of Essex 
 himself (which was doubtless true), and that they were there- 
 fore justified in opposing it by all means. Essex was not 
 even the Queen's Deputy, they argued, but a private speculator 
 bent on dispossessing them for his own ends. 
 
 * Essex to Burleigh, July 20th, 1573.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Sidney returns to Ireland His extraordinary qualities Essex retires to Newry 
 Dismay of Sir Nicholas Bagenal He appeals to the Privy Council- 
 Essex moves to Drogheda He applies for grants of Farney and Magee 
 Island He builds a bridge over the Blackwater Essex's meeting with 
 Brian McPhelim Arrest and execution of Sir Brian and Rory Oge McQuillin 
 Readjustment of the Clandeboyes Shane McBrian and Neil McHugh 
 Con McNeil Oge Essex abandons Antrim He summons Tirlough Luin- 
 each to Dundalk Tirlough Luineach sends Lady Agnes Her good 
 qualities Essex invades Tyrone His alliance with Hugh McManus 
 Con McCalvagh's refusal Essex arrests him Essex invades Coleraine 
 Is defeated by Sorley Boy and returns to Newry Essex's failure His 
 death Suspicion of poison Rathlin Island massacre Sorley Boy attacks 
 Carrickfergus His victory Carrickfergus appeals to Sidney He visits 
 the Glynns and restores Rathlin Island to Sorley Boy Description of 
 Carrickfergus. 
 
 IN September, 1575, Sir Henry Sidney replaced Fitzwilliam 
 as Deputy. " He found Ireland one scene of warfare 
 and intestine commotion he established peace, friendship 
 and charity between the Kinnell-Connell and the Kinnell- 
 Eoghan,* and throughout every part of Ulster." Such was 
 the tribute paid to Sidney by the Four Masters on the occasion 
 of this, his third appearance in Ireland as Deputy, and the 
 tribute was not altogether unmerited. Sir William Fitzwilliam 
 had filled the gap during his absence, and that unscrupulous 
 politician and Essex, between them, had played havoc with 
 the peace of Ireland. All parties agreed that Sidney, and 
 Sidney alone, was the man who could set things straight again. 
 The unanimity of opinion on this point is most remarkable, 
 and^bears testimony to the extraordinary qualities of this 
 great man. Weston, the Chancellor, in a treatise on the general 
 situation in Ireland at the time of Essex's ill-fated Plantation 
 scheme, names Sidney as the only official of the day that the 
 people feared or respected. Fenton, the permanent Secre- 
 tary, in his correspondence with the London Ministry, went 
 even further in his commendation. " Sir Henry Sidney," he 
 
 * Eoghan and Connell were the twin sons of Neil Nayg Yarragh, Hence we 
 get Tyr-Eoghan (Tyrone) and Tyr-Connell. Eoghan, being the first-born, was 
 styled O'Neil. 
 
 64
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 65 
 
 said, " is mighty and popular with all sorts in all parts of Ire- 
 land. He is reverenced as the patron that would deliver the 
 country."* From the military section of the administration 
 we get a continuation of the eulogy. " Throughout all the 
 land," Captain Piers writes to Walsingham, " Sir Henry Sidney 
 is the man most desired, and that for peace and war generally 
 is deemed the best."f The Queen disliked Sidney, but she 
 was shrewd enough to see the necessity for subordinating her 
 personal feelings to the needs of the situation. Sidney, for 
 the third time, was sent back to Ireland to repair the faults 
 of others, but too late to prevent the mischief which had already 
 been done. The country was indeed in a very lamentable 
 state. Sidney was the last man to make any reflections on 
 the conduct of his predecessor, but he was not so reticent on 
 the subject of Essex and his doings in the North. In a despair- 
 ing complaint to Walsingham, he bewails the fact that " the 
 violent and intempestuous proceedings of the Earl of Essex " 
 had overthrown all the good feeling he had established in 
 Ulster during his former tenure of office. Nor was this an 
 overstatement of the case. Essex had failed to make a single 
 friend in Ulster. His biographers represent him as a noble 
 but unfortunate man, and it may well be that judged by the 
 standard of the day he was no worse than others. His failure 
 in Ulster was due, to a great extent, to Fitzwilliam's systematic 
 hostility to a scheme which threatened to interfere with his 
 own illicit gains, and it was aggravated by ignorance of the 
 country and of the ways of its people. He succeeded in 
 arousing the antagonism of almost every chief in Ulster 
 Tirlough Luineach, O'Cahan, Brian McPhelim, and the newly- 
 escaped Con McNeil Oge, Sorley Boy, the other branches of 
 the McDonnells, and even the usually friendly Maguire, were 
 frankly and undisguisably hostile. O'Donnell, being in no 
 way personally affected, looked on from his inaccessible moun- 
 tains with contemptuous indifference. Only Sir Hugh O'Reilly 
 was openly friendly, and his friendship for the Ulster Governor 
 " was much misliked by his people," and was not of material 
 value to Essex, as his country was outside the scope of the 
 Plantation scheme. 
 
 Essex himself, as we have seen, sickened of Carrickfergus 
 
 * Fenton to Walsingham, Nov. 1581. 
 
 t Capt. Piers to Walsingham, April llth, 1583.
 
 66 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 and its discomforts at a very early date, and in July of 1574 
 he left young John Norris in charge of the Belfast and Carrick- 
 fergus garrisons, and quartered himself on Sir Nicholas Bagenal 
 at Leicester House, Newry. This invasion was by no means 
 to the taste of the old Marshal, whose official salary of 300 
 a year did not permit of protracted entertainments, and in 
 October he complained very gloomily to the Privy Council 
 that the Governor had now been at his charge for three full 
 months, and showed no signs of shifting his quarters.* The 
 Privy Council replied, in effect, that God helped those who 
 helped themselves, and the Marshal, taking the hint, managed 
 in some way to get rid of his pertinacious guest, who thereupon 
 shifted his quarters to Drogheda, where he spent much of his 
 time and a great deal of money on improving the place.'j' 
 
 It is not to be supposed that Essex had come to Ireland 
 without some idea of personal land-acquisition at the back of 
 his mind. The settlement of the country with law-abiding 
 subjects, though presenting a sufficiently pleasing prospect 
 to the idealist, was not the primary object for which Essex 
 had abandoned all his English interests and comforts. He 
 was after land, and the profits derivable from land. It was 
 some little time before his choice of localities was made. 
 Curiously enough, the present prosperous counties of Antrim, 
 Down and Armagh were reckoned of little agricultural value 
 in the sixteenth century, and Essex's selection finally fell 
 upon the Barony of Farney, J in the south-eastern corner of 
 County Monaghan, and upon the tongue of land on the east 
 coast of Antrim known as Magee Island. Farney lay some 
 ten miles only to the west of Newry, and, during the time that 
 Essex was quartered on the Marshal, he spent much of his 
 time in riding backwards and forwards between Newry and 
 his prospective property, through the woods of the intervening 
 Fews. Through these woods, we are told that, in order to 
 facilitate his coming and going, he caused an avenue to be 
 cut capable of accommodating ten horsemen abreast. 
 
 Though personal gain was naturally Essex's primary object, 
 
 * Bagenal to Privy Council, Oct. llth, 1574. Essex to Privy Council, Oct. 
 17th, 1574. 
 
 f Shirley's " History of Farney." 
 J Shirley's " History of Monaghan." 
 Four Masters.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 67 
 
 he cannot be fairly accused of wholly neglecting the national 
 interests. Two acts must always stand to his credit. One 
 was the selection of Belfast as the site of a new fort, and the 
 other was the building of a bridge over the Blackwater, and 
 the permanent establishment of a fort to guard the main 
 passage into central and western Ulster. The first bridge, as 
 built by Essex, was a pontoon bridge with a stone buttress 
 at each end, and a strong fort on the south-east side. It was 
 finished in July, 1575, and was then garrisoned and left in 
 charge of Captain John Cornwall. The strategic importance 
 of this place was very great, and in Tyrone's subsequent re- 
 bellion it was the one spot for the possession of which both 
 sides ceaselessly intrigued. 
 
 On the other side of the balance sheet stands one very bad 
 act, which Essex's most ardent apologists have failed satis- 
 factorily to explain away. The act in question was the seizure 
 and execution of Brian McPhelim and Rory Oge McQuillin, 
 the two native chiefs who at the moment divided up between 
 them the whole of Antrim, with the exception of the coast 
 district held by the Scotch McDonnells. The exact facts 
 surrounding this incident must always remain a matter of 
 doubt, owing to the disconcerting way in which the several 
 accounts vary. In the " Annals of Queen Elizabeth " (Camden) 
 it is stated that Brian was captured in an engagement in 
 which 200 of his men were killed. The Four Masters, on the 
 other hand, give the following very different story. Brian 
 and his wife were invited to meet Essex at Massareene under 
 a safe conduct. The invitation was accepted, and, after three 
 days and nights of pleasant feasting, 200 of his followers 
 were killed, and Brian and his wife were treacherously seized 
 and sent to Dublin, where they were cut in four pieces. The 
 Records of Carrickfergus, again, say that Brian McPhelim 
 and his half-brother, Rory McQuillin, were arrested at Belfast 
 and executed at Carrickfergus. The main points of difference 
 between the Irish and English versions are that all the former 
 insist that Brian and his wife were executed in Dublin, while 
 the English records place the execution at Carrickfergus, and 
 substitute Rory Oge McQuillin for Brian's wife. Sir Brian's 
 wife was unquestionably arrested at the same time as the others, 
 for we get this clearly in Essex's letter to Sidney of November 
 17th, but there is no word of her execution. The probability 
 
 5*
 
 68 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 is that the English version is the correct one, for, had Brian 
 been executed in Dublin, the responsibility for the act would 
 clearly have rested on Sidney, whereas we find Essex at great 
 pains to justify himself in the matter. Apart from this error, 
 and apart from the optimistic estimate of the feast's duration, 
 the Four Masters' account seems to be near enough to the 
 truth. Both sides came to the meeting-place with consider- 
 able forces and in evident distrust of one another. Essex had 
 with him his Belfast garrison under John Norris, Nicholas 
 Maltby, the Governor of Lecale, with as many of his men 
 as he could spare, and the Baron of Dungannon in command 
 of some of the Marshal's men. The latter' s presence with 
 Essex was anything but a happy augury of peace, for he had 
 just divorced Sir Brian's daughter in order to marry Joan 
 O'Donnell. Whether Con McNeil Oge accompanied Essex 
 or not we do not know, but, if such was the case, much that 
 subsequently happened can be explained, for he and Sir Brian 
 were enemies to the death. 
 
 Brian on his side had, at any rate, not less than 200 men 
 with him, for both sides agree as to the number of his casualties. 
 Whether there was any feasting or not is doubtful, but the 
 initial proceedings were most certainly friendly on the sur- 
 face, for Essex justifies his action, in giving the signal to 
 attack, by the claim that he had discovered a plot of Brian's 
 to murder Maltby in the same way that, on a previous occa- 
 sion, he had murdered a certain Mr. Moore during a friendly 
 parley, and that in taking the initiative he was merely fore- 
 stalling the other side. Such purely ex parte statements are 
 not easy to substantiate, and in Irish minds, at any rate, 
 Essex's name will for ever be associated with an act of base 
 treachery. In the purely historical mind, a reasonable sus- 
 picion of the Governor's bona fides is not lessened by the 
 reflection that the two chiefs executed were at the moment 
 the native lords ruling over the lands he was proposing to 
 colonize.* 
 
 Brian McPhelim and Rory Oge McQuillin were executed in 
 
 * McQuillin's country was in the present Barony of Kilconway. Originally 
 the Route district lying to the north of Kilconway had all been McQuillin's 
 property, but the McDonnells had gradually pushed the original owners south 
 as they themselves became stronger. The actual boundaries dividing the two 
 countries were never of a permanent character, but fluctuated continually in 
 sympathy with the respective strength at the moment of the McDonnells and 
 the McQuillins.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 60 
 
 June, 1575. Sir Brian left a son known as Shane McBrian, 
 and a nephew known as Neil McHugh, and these two at once 
 started contending for the dead man's lands in North Clande- 
 boye a contest which they kept up without intermission, and 
 with ebb and flow results, for over twenty years. In South 
 Clandeboye, and in the vaguely-bounded districts that sur- 
 rounded it, Sir Brian's death left the way clear for the return 
 of Con McNeil Oge to the home of his ancestors. Even here, 
 however, his reinstatement was not effected without the appear- 
 ance on the scene of a rival claimant in the shape of Brian 
 Feartagh, or rather of his more ambitious and energetic son, 
 Neil McBrian Feartagh. Con, however, was the stronger 
 both in native following and in Government support, and 
 Neil McBrian had to wait another fifteen years before his 
 opportunity came. When it did come, his triumph was com- 
 plete, for he managed to capture Con (at that time an outlaw), 
 hand him over to the Government and triumphantly step 
 into his place. 
 
 The three new landlords of the Clandeboyes, Shane McBrian, 
 Neil McHugh and Con McNeil Oge, though they were very 
 clear gainers by the death of Sir Brian, were by no means at 
 ease in their newly-acquired possessions, for the reflection not 
 unnaturally came to them that they, in their turn, might be 
 sacrificed as their predecessor had been, in order to clear the 
 way for Essex's Plantation scheme. Out of this reflection, 
 and out of the fears that it gave rise to, grew a very deadly 
 hatred of the Earl of Essex. Whether Essex realized the full 
 intensity of this feeling is not clear, but he could hardly have 
 failed to grasp the one point which most closely affected him 
 personally, which was that, in place of the two local chiefs 
 whom he had done to death, there had risen up, hydra-like, 
 three others equally crafty, equally irreconcilable, and equally 
 determined to frustrate his schemes by any means fair or foul. 
 Nor did the clouds on the horizon end there, for he was now 
 beginning to understand that, even should he succeed in getting 
 rid of the three new land-chiefs, others with equally strong 
 credentials would at once rise up in their place, and carry on 
 the war against the introduction of English settlers. Essex 
 began to weary of his undertaking. He recognized by now 
 that he was too well hated to carry it through by popular agree- 
 ment, and too weak to force it through with the sword. His
 
 70 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 interest in the larger undertaking, too, seems to have waned 
 in exact ratio to the successful progress of his private property 
 schemes. He had served himself better than he had served 
 his Queen ; and, content with this conclusion, he definitely 
 abandoned all idea of introducing English blood, and deter- 
 mined to utilize the unexpired portion of his two years' grant 
 in pushing his interests in the wider fields of western Ulster. 
 
 His first step in this new direction was to invite Tirlough 
 Luineach to come into Newry and parley, but that cautious 
 chieftain with Brian McPhelim's recent fate before his eyes 
 declined the honour, and prudently sent his wife instead. 
 Lady Agnes, a highly cultured lady, who could speak with 
 equal fluency in Gaelic, English or French, made a marked 
 impression on Essex,* who described her as " a wise and civil 
 [civilized] woman, and a great instrument for peace." Bagenal, 
 who was present at the interview, was no less struck, and wrote 
 her down " a very nobell wyse woman." The main condition 
 which Essex tried to impose on this " nobell wyse woman " 
 was that Tirlough Luineach should reduce the number of his 
 mercenary Scots to 300, and that these must be Camp- 
 bells or McLeans, and in no case McDonnells. Lady Agnes, 
 without giving any definite undertaking on the part of her 
 lord, said she would do her best, and so departed, Tirlough 
 Luineach being given ten days in which to make his decision. 
 It would be interesting to know exactly what passed between 
 husband and wife in the privacy of Dunalong Castle, and 
 whether Lady Agnes was really the " well-wisher for peace " 
 that she appeared to be. If so, her influence was not equal 
 to her intentions, for Tirlough Luineach stoutly declined to 
 yield to Essex's terms, pointing out, with some show of reason, 
 that his compliance would lay him open to attack and ruin 
 at the hands of O'Donnell and other hostile neighbours. Such 
 excuses had no interest whatever for Essex, who on the pre- 
 text that Tirlough Luineach had defied the Queen's mandate 
 now set out on one of the customary punitive expeditions 
 into Tyrone. He had the satisfaction of crossing the Black- 
 water by his own new bridge, by this time sufficiently com- 
 pleted to allow of the passage of his troops, and from that 
 point to Clogher he conformed with tradition, and at the same 
 time registered his displeasure at Tirlough Luineach' s obstinacy, 
 * Hill's " McDonnells of Antrim."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 71 
 
 by destroying all the corn-stacks he could find. At Clogher 
 he called a halt, and from there made a successful raid south 
 into Fermanagh, and carried off 400 of Maguire's cattle, 
 with which welcome provision for his troops he went on to 
 Omagh, where he encamped. Here Tirlough Luineach put 
 in a sudden appearance with a force of 800 men and attacked 
 the camp, but the attack failed, and Tirlough Luineach him- 
 self only narrowly escaped capture by leaving behind his horse 
 and mantle, and plunging into the dense oak woods with which 
 Omagh was then surrounded.* From Omagh the army con- 
 tinued its march, without further incident, down the left bank 
 of the Mourne as far as Lifford. Here the O'Donnell appeared 
 on the scene with 200 horse and 300 gallowglasses, but his 
 intentions were not hostile, for he was on anything but friendly 
 terms at the moment with Tirlough Luineach, and saw in the 
 advent of the Government force possibilities for pushing his 
 own parochial fortunes. Con McCalvagh, too, came out of 
 Lifford Castle, of which he had resumed occupation after 
 Shane's death, and the three conferred together, while Essex's 
 force was revictualling from two ships which had been sent 
 round from Carrickfergus to the Foyle, and which now lay 
 half-way between Deny and Lifford. Essex suggested to the 
 two O'Donnells that they should join him against Tirlough 
 Luineach, holding out the usual inducements in the way of 
 material advantages to be gained. 
 
 In Donegal, at the time of Essex's visit, the struggle for the 
 ascendancy between the house of Hugh McManus and the 
 house of Calvagh was still in full vigour, and indeed was destined 
 to outlive the century. In this struggle Con had the influence 
 and effective support of his father-in-law, Tirlough Luineach, 
 between whom and himself there was a lasting and sincere 
 affection. When, therefore, Essex suggested to Hugh that 
 he should join him against Tirlough Luineach, he was putting 
 forward a proposition which there was no need to make twice. 
 Hugh embraced the offer with avidity. With Con, however, 
 it was quite another matter. He was asked not only to fight 
 against his father-in-law, but against the man who had been, 
 and still was, his consistent supporter in his claims to the lands 
 of Donegal. The suggestion was a preposterous one, and he 
 very stoutly refused to have anything to do with it. 
 
 * Waterhouse to Burleigh, June, 1575.
 
 72 
 
 Essex could hardly have expected any other reply, but he 
 expressed great indignation, had the unfortunate Con at once 
 arrested, and sent him to Dublin as a prisoner. This very 
 questionable act was undoubtedly prompted by Hugh 
 O'Donnell, who had always coveted Lifford, and who seized 
 upon the Castle and all his nephew's cattle the moment the 
 latter was safely out of the way. In fact, it is more than likely 
 that Con's arrest was one of the conditions on which Hugh 
 agreed to join Essex against Tirlough Luineach, and in any 
 other schemes which he might have in the north. It is satis- 
 factory to be able to record that Con was well treated in Dublin, 
 and very soon effected his escape, after which he hid about in 
 the woods till Sidney sent him his pardon after Essex's death 
 in the autumn. 
 
 Essex and his new ally did no fighting in Tyrone, for the 
 wary Tirlough Luineach could not be induced to accept battle. 
 " The Irish," Essex complained to the Privy Council in great 
 disgust, " will never show fight, except upon great advantage 
 of numbers and position."* Tirlough Luineach probably had 
 his own reasons for avoiding a direct encounter. He was 
 never of a provocative nature, and his own common sense, as 
 well as that of his wife, must have warned him that he had 
 everything to lose and nothing to gain by a pitched battle, no 
 matter what the issue might be. Essex, however, was dis- 
 appointed and contemptuous, and, wearying after a time of 
 crowing ceaseless challenges which were never taken up, he 
 turned his back on the invisible Tirlough Luineach, and, after 
 burning as much of his corn as he could find, passed on into 
 Coleraine. The alliance with O'Donnell had proved in the 
 end of no value whatever to Essex, but of considerable value 
 to the crafty Celt, who had not only got possession of Lifford, 
 but had managed as well to spirit away into the wilds of Donegal 
 the great bulk of Con's cattle, though his bargain with Essex 
 had been that the latter should have the cattle, while O'Donnell 
 had the land and Castles. Essex chafed bitterly over this 
 fresh proof of native infidelity, but he was too wise to attempt 
 the hopeless task of pursuing his false ally into the impene- 
 tratable bogs and morasses of Donegal. He contented himself 
 with burning everything that he could find to burn, and then 
 set his face eastwards. No adventures seem to have befallen 
 * Cal. State Papers. Essex to Privy Council, 1573.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 78 
 
 him in Coleraine, and he was just preparing to cross the Bann 
 into the McDonnell's country when his appetite for battle 
 was assuaged though not in the way he anticipated by an 
 encounter with Sorley Boy, in which Essex had so decidedly 
 the worst of it that he was forced to abandon all idea of cross- 
 ing the river and asserting his authority in the Route, and had 
 to return to Newry via the left bank of the Bann and the 
 western shore of Lough Neagh. 
 
 Essex's two years' grant had now expired, and he had no 
 wish to renew it. The whole enterprise had proved a dismal 
 failure, and had practically ruined its originator, who had lost 
 everything in the venture except the favour of the Queen, 
 who in spite of everything still appraised him as " a rare 
 treasure and the principal ornament of her nobility."* Pre- 
 suming upon his one remaining asset, he crossed over to England, 
 and there put in a personal application for a confirmation of 
 his grant of Farney, and for the additional grant of Magee 
 Island off the east coast of Antrim. Both applications were 
 granted, and, with the patents in his pocket, he landed again 
 in Ireland on July 22nd, 1576, and made for Dublin, where 
 for three weeks he was the guest of Loftus, the Chancellor. 
 On August 10th he set out from the capital to meet Sidney, 
 who was returning from a visit to Connaught, and together 
 the two rode back to Dublin. On the following day Essex 
 was by the Queen's command invested by the Deputy with 
 the commission of Earl Marshal of Ireland for the remainder 
 of his life. His tenure of this office was unhappily short. 
 A week after his investiture he was taken ill of dysentery, and 
 on September 22nd he died, after writing a touching letter 
 to the Queen, in which he commended his ten-year-old son Robert 
 to her tender care.f 
 
 Essex was thirty-six years of age when he died. It was 
 supposed by some and more especially by his secretary, Sir 
 Edward Waterhouse that he had been poisoned at the insti- 
 gation of Leicester, who certainly married the widow with 
 most indecent haste ; but the evidence against Leicester is 
 not convincing, and we may reasonably assume that Essex's 
 death was a natural one. Essex's last act was his worst, and 
 though it was not carried out under his direct eye, it is fully 
 
 * Queen to Essex, April llth, 1575. 
 f Shirley's " History of Monaghan."
 
 74 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 established that he gave exact instructions to his Lieutenant 
 as to the procedure to be followed. There is more than a 
 suspicion that the whole revolting business was undertaken 
 partly to avenge his recent discomfiture at the hands of Sorley 
 Boy on the Bann, and partly to minimize in the Queen's mind 
 the barrenness of his Ulster performances. 
 
 It will be remembered that, by a very clear breach of faith 
 on the part of the Queen, Rathlin Island had been included in 
 the schedule of lands which Essex was commissioned to plant 
 with English settlers. When Essex returned south after his 
 abortive expedition into Tyrone and Coleraine, he left orders 
 with John Norris, the Constable of Belfast, to proceed north, 
 with 300 foot and 80 horse, and inflict all the injury possible 
 on Sorley Boy and his belongings. In conformity with these 
 instructions Norris set out in July, 1575, with three English 
 frigates in attendance. The co-operation of the frigates put 
 completely out of court any question of successful opposition 
 on the sea coast, and Sorley Boy, " with all his gentlemen,"* 
 withdrew to Brian Carragh's country in Loughinshollin, on the 
 fringe of Glenconkein, while the wives and children of the 
 settlement were sent across to Rathlin Island. Norris, contrary 
 to Sorley Boy's expectations, paid no attention to the male 
 members of the clan, but concentrated all his efforts on the 
 Island. Boats from his frigates conveyed his troops across 
 the five miles of water, and a landing was effected on July 22nd. 
 Three days were then spent in bombarding the Castle, following 
 which an assault was launched, in the course of which the 
 Constable of the Castle was killed, but the attack was beaten 
 off. The garrison of 40 men then called for a parley, and 
 the Captain in command came out and asked that they should 
 all be put across to Scotland. This was refused, and finally 
 the inmates of the Castle to the number of 200, 80 per cent, 
 of whom were women and children, came out unconditionally, 
 and were all butchered out of hand, except the Captain, his 
 wife and children.^ The soldiers then hunted the island, 
 which is five miles long by a mile in breadth, and from caves 
 and rocks dragged out 400 more of the McDonnell women and 
 children, all of whom were massacred. 
 
 Essex in his triumphant report of the total extermination of 
 
 * Essex to Walsingham, July 81st, 1575. 
 
 t Carew MSS. Essex to Queen, July 31st, 1575.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 75 
 
 the Scotch population of the island, says that Sorley Boy from 
 the mainland was a witness of the bloody work " and was like 
 to have run mad with sorrow,"* which in the circumstances 
 is not surprising. 
 
 The Rathlin Island massacre is the blackest spot in Elizabeth's 
 administration of Ulster. It was an act of barbarism for which 
 there was no shadow of justification. By the terms of the 
 arrangement entered into with Captain Piers, the island had 
 been definitely assigned to Sorley Boy, in consideration of 
 his evacuating the mainland for six months. He had evacuated 
 it for four years, in order that the English Plantation scheme 
 might have a fair trial. When this had finally been proved 
 a failure he had returned, not in any spirit of aggression against 
 the English, for as we have seen he had been of signal ser- 
 vice to the Carrickfergus garrison in an emergency, but with the 
 idea of once more peaceably occupying the lands which were 
 his by inheritance. 
 
 The Rathlin Island incident seems at the time to have excited 
 neither horror nor even adverse criticism. The Queen, in 
 fact, highly commended Norris for his conduct of the affair ; 
 nor do we read that Essex's dying hours (during which he gave 
 evidence of a high standard of piety) were in the smallest degree 
 disturbed by the ghosts of his innocent victims. Loftus wrote 
 to Burleigh : " If my judgment be anything, there hath been 
 seldom more true honour and virtue put in any nobleman 
 than is in him." Sorley Boy's opinion, however, was other- 
 wise. Essex himself was beyond the reach of his vengeance, 
 but his instrument, John Norris, was not : for he and most of 
 the troops that had taken part in the Rathlin Island expedition 
 were in Carrickfergus. On the 6th September, i.e., just six 
 weeks after the massacre, Sorley Boy, at the head of a force 
 mainly composed of the fathers, brothers and sons of the Island 
 victims, was responsible for a deed of extraordinary and, 
 indeed, of unprecedented daring. For the first time in the 
 history of Ireland a strong English garrison was assaulted in 
 its own fortress. Animated with an intense fury at the thought 
 of the butchery of their wives and children, the McDonnells 
 hurled themselves against the ramparts of Carrickfergus. The 
 garrison consisted of Captain John Norris's and Captain Baker's 
 companies, both of which had taken part in the massacre. 
 
 * Essex to Walsinpham, July 31st, 1575.
 
 ?6 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 In addition to these, Captain Maekworth, who was Constable 
 at the time, armed all the able-bodied townsmen, and made 
 them line the ramparts alongside of the regulars. They required 
 little persuasion, for no one had any illusions as to the fate 
 that awaited all if Sorley Boy broke through. A most desperate 
 battle ensued. The Scots failed to actually penetrate the 
 town, but the Dublin Privy Council had to admit that the 
 victory was theirs. Captain Baker, and no fewer than 100 
 of the regulars were killed, and sixteen of the armed civilians, 
 including those prominent citizens, Webster Elderton and Jeffory 
 Graf ton.* The material losses of the garrison were also very 
 serious, for in his retirement Sorley Boy managed to carry off 
 with him everything on four legs that the town possessed. 
 
 After the above bloody fight at Carrickfergus, Sorley Boy 
 sulkily withdrew to the Glynns, and from that rocky retreat 
 plotted, and indeed openly threatened, fresh reprisals against 
 the murderers of his women-folk. Carrickfergus, shaken to 
 its foundations by the ferocity of the recent assault, was ner- 
 vous and uneasy. Only too acutely did the townspeople realize 
 that their lives and all their belongings hung in the balance. 
 Prompt action of one kind or another seemed urgently called 
 for. Only one man in Ireland, however, was capable of dealing 
 with the situation. Everyone recognized that. The one man 
 was Sidney. Sidney had only just landed on Irish soil, but the 
 very first call upon his remarkable powers was from the fright- 
 ened men of Carrickfergus. Would he come, they pleaded, 
 and pacify the outraged Sorley Boy ? Sidney recognized the 
 seriousness of the situation, and at once set out for the north 
 with the absurdly inadequate force of 600 foot, hurriedly 
 collected. He reached the Glynns early in October, and at once 
 summoned Sorley Boy to come before him and explain his 
 recent conduct. Nothing could be more eloquent of Sidney's 
 extraordinary personality, or of the calming influence of his 
 anachronous sense of fair play, than the result of this inter- 
 view with Sorley Boy. The Scot who, in the passes of his 
 own rocky and wooded Glynns, could probably have crushed 
 Sidney's little force without difficulty, was soothed into tame- 
 ness by the mere rumour of his approach. Sidney found him 
 reasonable and submissive, but still chafing bitterly over the 
 Rathlin affair, in which he complained that some of his own 
 
 * McSkimmin's " History of Carrickfergus."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 77 
 
 children had been killed. Sidney was by no means insensible 
 to the justice of the old chief's grievance, and he gave sub- 
 stantial proof of his sympathy by at once withdrawing the 
 Rathlin garrison and handing the island back to Sorley Boy. 
 In order to justify this rather revolutionary action in high 
 quarters, he invented the excuse that the island had no fresh- 
 water. As a matter of fact it abounds in excellent springs. 
 
 Having in thfs way smoothed over the main trouble, Sidney 
 then went on to the Route, where, as a part of the arrange- 
 ment which had been come to with Sorley Boy, he turned that 
 chief's eldest son, Donald Gorm, out of some of the McQuillin's 
 lands on which he had recently encroached. This done, he 
 turned south again, and on his return journey visited Carrick- 
 fergus. In view of the late peril which had threatened the 
 entire community, the Deputy made a thorough inspection 
 of the town defences. The town, as it then stood, was in the 
 form of a triangle, with the old Abbey of St. Francis at that 
 time rechristened the " Palace," and converted into a common 
 storehouse forming the north-east corner. So demoralized 
 were the inhabitants by the various attacks of the past three 
 years, that Sidney found only five families of repute still 
 remaining. The turf rampart which surrounded the town had 
 in many places crumbled away, and was in any case a most 
 inadequate defence against the attacks of a strong and deter- 
 mined enemy. Sidney promised that he would have it replaced 
 by a stone wall.* Buoyed up by this promise, and by Sidney's 
 report of his compromise with Sorley Boy, the townsmen re- 
 covered their confidence, and we learn that, within two years 
 of Sidney's visit, the population had risen once more to 200. 
 The town by that time owned 40 fishing boats and 60 ploughs. 
 There were two market days a week to which ships came from 
 England, Scotland, the Isle of Man and France, the latter 
 bringing good Gascony wine, a hogshead of which the mer- 
 chants were glad to barter for eight good cowhides. Local 
 trade also revived now that Smith's foolish restrictions had been 
 removed, as a result of which fat beeves were brought in from 
 the country round which fetched 6s. 8d. a head, as well as 
 numbers of eggs, of which 20 could be bought for a penny.f 
 
 * McSkimmin's " History of Carrickfergus." 
 
 f Sidney to YValsingham, March 1583. By 1397 the price of beeves had risen 
 to 26s. 8d! a head.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Tirlough Luineach assists McQuillin and kills Donald Gorm He is reproved 
 by Sidney Applies for title of Earl of Omagh Con McCalvagh Sidney 
 restores his lands O'Donnell's arrears of rent McMahon and Magennis 
 The O'Neil's objections to the minor chiefs paying rent to the Crown- 
 Sidney leaves Ireland for ever Drury appoints Deputy He summons 
 Tirlough Luineach to the Blackwatcr Dungannon puts away his wife 
 and marries Tirlough Luineach's daughter. 
 
 had established Sorley Boy in the possession of 
 Rathlin Island, but he had, at the same time, turned 
 his eldest son, Donald Gorm, out of the southern part of the 
 Route in favour of the McQuillins, who had undoubtedly the 
 older title to the land. Donald Gorm, as may be supposed 
 was by no means satisfied with this judgment, and the Deputy's 
 back had hardly been turned before he began gently pushing 
 the McQuillins out again. These in turn appealed to Tirlough 
 Luineach, who, in response, came across the Bann and settled 
 the dispute by the old-fashioned but effective expedient of 
 killing Donald Gorm and a goodly number of his followers. 
 This was hardly in itself an offence of the first magnitude, 
 for as Tirlough Luineach justly pointed out he was merely 
 enforcing the land boundaries marked out by the Deputy 
 himself. None the less it was not in the interests of Govern- 
 ment authority a lapse to be lightly looked over, seeing that 
 Lady Agnes, only three months before, had undertaken on 
 behalf of her lord that he would not break the peace with 
 the Sorley Boy faction. 
 
 Tirlough Luineach was accordingly ordered to come to Newry 
 and give an explanation of his conduct to the Deputy. No 
 native chief had any fears of treachery or of underhand dealings 
 where Sidney was concerned, and instead of sending his 
 wife as he had done when Fitzwilliam was Deputy the O'Neil 
 now answered the summons in person, without hesitation or 
 distrust. In order to suitably celebrate the occasion, he 
 brought with him 400 in cash, which he managed to spend 
 
 78
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 79 
 
 in three days, during the whole of which period he, and all 
 his retinue, were happily drunk.* Tirlough Luineach, when 
 sufficiently recovered, was sternly rebuked by the Deputy 
 for his late breach of the peace. He was told that, in con- 
 sequence of this act of aggression, he must greatly reduce 
 the number of his hired Scots, so as to put it beyond his power 
 to commit similar depredations in the future. To this con- 
 dition Tirlough Luineach humbly agreed, and in return was 
 given the custody of Henry McShane, whom Sidney had brought 
 with him (probably for this very purpose). Tirlough Luineach 
 further petitioned for the title of Earl of Omagh, but this was 
 not granted him. He was offered in substitution the title of 
 Earl of Clanconnell, but this did not attract him, and the title 
 was, in fact, never used. 
 
 Tirlough Luineach was, unfortunately, a slave to drink, but he 
 was none the less a man of many good qualities. Not the least 
 admirable trait in his character was his unswerving devotion 
 to his son-in-law, Con McCalvagh. This unfortunate man 
 had written a long and pathetic letter to the Queen ten years 
 before, in which he set out the tale of his many wrongs. His 
 chief grievance was that he had been kept for three years a 
 prisoner by Shane O'Neil, and had thereby been defrauded of 
 his inheritance, which had, in the meanwhile, been usurped 
 by that base opportunist, Hugh McManus. Elizabeth had 
 replied in suitable terms, expressing sympathy with his mis- 
 fortunes, and promising that she would do her best to have 
 him appointed the official tanist ; in the meanwhile Fitzwilliam 
 who was Deputy at the time was instructed to make him 
 an allowance of 6s. 8d. a day. The pension had been regularly 
 paid, but nothing had been done to reinstate him in his lost 
 lands, till Sidney took the matter in hand in 1577, and with 
 his usual thoroughness carried it through. The astonishing 
 part of the business, and a standing monument to Sidney's 
 powers, was that not only did he put through a transaction 
 which must have been painfully distasteful to O'Donnell, but he 
 actually succeeded, in addition, in extracting from that slippery 
 chief 1,000 arrears of rent long owing to the Crown, without 
 bloodshed or any threatening display of force. Hugh McManus 
 remained the O'Donnell, but Con was reinstated in his old 
 possessions of Castle Finn and Lifford, and of all the lands be- 
 *Carew u MSS., Aug. 1574.
 
 80 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 tween. Having in this w&y disposed of the Donegal diffi- 
 culty, Sidney next turned his attention to the cases of McMahon 
 and Magennis. The former was 440 in arrear of rent, arid 
 this he claimed he was not able at the moment to make good ; 
 but he undertook to pay up as soon as possible, and in the 
 meanwhile both he and Magennis agreed to abolish the tanistry 
 system, and to hold their lands direct from the Crown, on the 
 primogeniture principle, for an annual payment of 250 beeves. 
 As the value of store cattle was at the time 5s. or under, the 
 exaction can hardly be called excessive. The question of 
 rent was then as ever the main source of trouble between 
 England and Ireland. The rents demanded by the Crown were 
 as has been shown absurdly small, and many of the more 
 enlightened among the lesser chiefs were quite prepared and 
 indeed willing to pay them ; but the disturbing factor was 
 always the O'Neil, first Con Bacagh, then Shane, then in a 
 lesser degree Tirlough Luineach, and, last but not least, Hugh. 
 The objections of the O'Neils were based on the traditional 
 idea that the lesser Ulster chiefs were their urraghs, or vassals, 
 who should pay rent to no one but themselves ; and, as the 
 rent paid to the Crown diminished the resources on which they 
 could themselves draw, they not only refused to pay any rent 
 themselves, but threatened with fire and sword any and all 
 who did. When the threat was carried out as it very frequently 
 was it then became the duty of the Deputy to retaliate on 
 the offending O'Neil by a punitive expedition into his country. 
 Here we have the cause of all the Ulster troubles of the six- 
 teenth century. Grasping chiefs very little removed from 
 brigands, and in any case most pitiless tyrants over their own 
 serfs, viewed with a jealous and sordid eye the alienation of 
 even a fraction 01 their prospective plunder. They lacked the 
 intelligence to see that their own financial interests lay in 
 paying the small head-rent, and cultivating the country into 
 productiveness, rather than in wasting the country and thinning 
 the population by their everlasting armed protests, which 
 merely had the effect of making the country incapable of paying 
 rent to anybody. 
 
 In the autumn of 1578 Sidney left Ireland for ever, if we 
 can believe his own account, a very much poorer man than he 
 had come,* and his place was taken by Drury. Drury's ad- 
 * Sidney to Walsingham, March, 1583.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 81 
 
 ministration, and that of Grey who succeeded him, was unevent- 
 ful as far as the northern province of Ireland was concerned. 
 The confidence and tranquillity that had followed on Sidney's 
 politic dealings with the chiefs lasted throughout Drury's 
 term of office . It was beginning to wane when Grey took up 
 the reins of Government, but that functionary's entire energies 
 were needed to deal with Desmond's rebellion in the south, and 
 the north was left pretty much to itself. Every attempt 
 was made to drag Ulster into the southern rebellion, but though 
 Tirlough Luineach made occasional demonstrations in force 
 in the direction of the Pale, he showed no disposition to be 
 actively aggressive. It is more than probable that his wife 
 now proved the " wise counsellor " that Sidney had described 
 her, and that she prevented her lord from being weakly dragged 
 into a bloody contest of which she foresaw that the inevitable 
 end must be defeat. Lady Agnes's efforts in this direction, 
 if not proved, were at any rate strongly suspected by the 
 Queen, and, in recognition of her supposed good offices, she 
 was presented with one of Elizabeth's magnificent velvet dresses, 
 which, however, we are told, was so damaged in places by Her 
 Majesty's untidy fashion of eating that it had to be provided 
 with a new lap before presentation.* 
 
 In 1579 Tirlough Luineach responded to a summons by 
 Drury to meet him at the Blackwater fort. The O'Neil was 
 at that time popularly supposed to be on the high road to the 
 grave. He had been shot in the stomach, some little time 
 before, by a ball from a caliver, which his jester Donnelly had 
 accidentally let off during a carouse at Tirlough Luineach's 
 Castle at Strabane.j" The natural vigour of his constitution 
 must have been remarkable, for in spite of his habitual pota- 
 tions he eventually made a complete recovery. At the 
 time of his meeting with Drury, he was still too weak to ride, 
 and he was carried 40 miles in a litter to the place of meeting. 
 He wore the high steepled-crowned taffeta hat set with bugles 
 that the Earl of Argyle had given him as a wedding present, 
 and we are told that he also affected the " glibbe," or shaggy 
 mane of hair, which the habit of the Irish was to shake over 
 their eyes when questioned, so that their expression should 
 not give them away. 
 
 * Gcrrard to Walsinghatn, Jan. 8th, 1579. 
 f " Hibernia Anglicana."
 
 82 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Tirlough Luineach, as usual, was drunk most of the time, 
 but sober enough to effect his main object, which was to per- 
 suade the Baron of Dungannon, who was with Drury, to put 
 away his second wife, Joan O'Donnell, and marry one of his own 
 daughters, whom he had diplomatically brought with him for 
 the purpose. Tirlough Luineach hoped that this transaction 
 would have the double effect of creating a rupture between 
 O'Donnell and Dungannon, and of attaching the latter to 
 his own party ; while Dungannon, who like everyone else 
 thought that Tirlough Luineach's days were numbered, 
 calculated that, with the O'Neil's daughter as his wife, he might 
 safely consider that he had one foot already on the coronation - 
 stone at Tullahogue. 
 
 Drury, who greatly feared an alliance between the two 
 branches of the O' Neils, did all in his power to prevent the affair 
 from going through, but without success. The marriage was 
 then and there solemnized, Dungannon, at the same time, 
 giving a very young child of his in marriage to Ross McMahon. 
 Tirlough Luineach was delighted with the success of his diplo- 
 matic efforts, and, in the course of the carouse which followed, 
 he genially nominated Dungannon his tanist. This last trans- 
 action, however, was prudently kept a secret, in deference 
 to the well-known prejudices of the Queen against the tanistry 
 system. 
 
 In the course of the discussion which took place fifteen years 
 later in the matter of Mabel Bagenal's marriage to the Earl 
 of Tyrone, efforts were made to prove that the marriage was 
 not legal on the grounds that Tyrone had not taken the proper 
 steps to divorce his former wife, Joan O'Donnell. In this 
 discussion no mention is made of Tirlough Luineach's daughter, 
 which might at first be construed into primd Jade evidence 
 that the marriage of Tyrone (or Dungannon, as he was at the 
 time) with that lady did not take place. It is quite clear, 
 however, that, if the object at the time was to prove that the 
 marriage of Tyrone with Mabel Bagenal was irregular because 
 he was still tied to Joan O'Donnell, no intervening alliance 
 would affect the point in question, because any such alliance 
 would have been equally irregular. That Dungannon was 
 married to Tirlough Luineach's daughter both in form and 
 substance is unquestionable. The evidence is as strong as 
 evidence can be on any historical point in sixteenth-century
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 88 
 
 Ireland. On February llth, 1579, Drury wrote to Burleigh 
 to the effect that Dungannon was contemplating the marriage, 
 which he himself was combating and with apparent success. 
 On February 22nd Treasurer Fyton wrote to Burleigh announ- 
 cing that Dungannon was again proposing to marry Tirlough 
 Luineach's daughter. Then, on March 30th, Drury definitely 
 informed the Privy Council that " Dungannon has taken Tir- 
 lough Luineach's daughter, and sent away his wife." 
 
 It is, however, probable that the alliance was of very short 
 duration, and that, the moment his political differences with 
 Tirlough Luineach arose over the land question, Tyrone un- 
 ceremoniously turned the lady out into the cold. 
 
 6*
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The tanistry system Coyne, livery and bonaght Oppression of the peasantry 
 by the chiefs Armed forces Spenser's description of the kerne and 
 gallowglasses Inability of the chiefs to control their men The case of 
 Phelim McTirlough O'Neil The apotheosis of the O'Neil Low estimate 
 of the peasantry by their chiefs Sidney's sympathy with the peasantry 
 The accumulating evil of the tanistry system. 
 
 PROSAIC regularity, which makes for an orderly sequence 
 of events, is abhorrent to the Celtic mind, and more 
 particularly is this the case where a happy uncertainty surrounds 
 the alternative, as for instance, when a suddenly-created vacancy 
 requires filling by the popular voice, or some other capricious 
 referendum. In such a case, anything in the nature of assured 
 routine is fatal to the pleasurable excitement which circulates 
 when ardent partisanship runs riot, and is therefore universally 
 unpopular. The basic cause of this unpopularity, in common 
 with the basic cause of most human likes and dislikes, when 
 stripped of make-believe, is plainly sordid. No honest analyst 
 of motives can get away from this unromantic conclusion. 
 In cases, that is to say, where automatic succession is unpopular, 
 it is unpopular because, by eliminating the element of partisan- 
 ship, it also eliminates the expected guerdon of the partisan, 
 which is, after all, the driving power of all elections, whether 
 decided by the ballot or the sword. The tanistry system, 
 which in plain English meant a general scramble for a dead 
 chief's assets by all his nearest relatives, was for this reason 
 universally popular in Ireland, except among the peasantry 
 and agriculturists, who formed part of the assets scrambled 
 for, and who generally got killed in the scramble. In English 
 high quarters the tanistry system had long been looked upon 
 as the fundamental curse of the country. Henry VIII. had 
 been the first to recognize that most of the ills of Ireland were 
 traceable in one way or another to this common root. 
 
 Tanistry may be defined as the ancient Irish custom, accord-
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 85 
 
 ing to which the succession to a vacant chiefry rested upon 
 popular favour instead of on the established rights of primo- 
 geniture. In the present democratic age, when the tendency 
 is to substitute as far as possible the elective principle for the 
 hereditary, a revival of the tanistry system would find many 
 supporters. It must be remembered, however, that in Ireland 
 in the sixteenth century the popular voice as at present 
 understood made no sound in these county elections. Armed 
 force usually foreign and imported was the factor which 
 decided the contest with cold steel, always bared and sometimes 
 reddened. The inevitable effect of such a system was that, 
 during t he lifetime of the reigning chiefs, every potential candi - 
 date kept in his train as many armed retainers as his resources 
 would permit of, with the idea that, when the crucial moment 
 arrived, there might be a substantial argument at the back 
 of his official claim. The effect was to burden the country 
 with a mass of idle, cruel and dissolute men, who were an 
 intolerable infliction to the peasantry. Sussex, though himself 
 a gross and clumsy administrator, and by no means free from 
 the charge of adopting native methods, had sufficient dis- 
 crimination to gauge the enormity of the evil. " The election 
 to the captaincy of the country," he says in his report on the 
 state of Ireland in 1562, " is the chief cause why the Irish do 
 keep great numbers of idle men of war, that thereby they might 
 be the stronger, hoping by their strength to be the liker to be 
 elected captain upon an election. These men of war, being 
 brought up and fed with idleness, cannot be restrained in time 
 of peace from stealing and a number of other enormities. To 
 maintain them in their life, they have finding and expenses 
 upon the country, whereby be brought in coyne, livery, bonaght, 
 and all other Irish exactions, which be the only ground and causes 
 of all the uncivil and detestable orders of this realm." 
 
 The coyne, livery and bonaght referred to may be briefly 
 explained as follows : 
 
 " Coyne " was a licence to the armed bands to take from 
 those on whom they were billeted everything that they wanted 
 in kind ; " livery " was a similar licence in respect of their 
 horses. " Bonaght," which was the worst of the three, was a 
 tax by which the unhappy tillers of the soil were made to find 
 the military pay of the kerne and gallowglasses quartered 
 upon them. The term " bonaghts," in the plural, was also
 
 86 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 loosely used to designate the bands who were maintained on 
 the bonaght system. It may be easily understood, then, that 
 the bonaghts were as welcome to the Irish peasantry as 
 locusts to the Egyptians. The kerne and gallowglasses who 
 were free-quartered on the people were a law unto themselves, 
 and did with the peasants as they would. What their treat- 
 ment of these poor wretches was may be gathered from the 
 following observations of the poet Spenser. " These " (the 
 kerne and gallowglasses) " be, I think, the most barbarous 
 and loathely conditions under heaven, for from the time that 
 they enter into that course " (coyne, livery and bonaght) 
 " they do use all the beastly behaviour that may be. They 
 oppress all men, they spoil as well the subject as the enemy ; 
 they steal, they are cruel and bloody, full of revenge and 
 delighting in daily executions ; licentious, swearers and blas- 
 phemers, common ravishers of women and murderers of 
 children." If the chiefs had been in a position to exercise 
 any control or discipline over these men of war the position 
 of the peasants might have been more tolerable, but they 
 were not. Most of them were afraid of their own fighting men. 
 They could lead them for evil, but they were quite powerless 
 either to check or punish their excesses. Henry Bagenal, who 
 had been born in Ireland and who knew Ulster in and out, 
 declared that both Tirlough Luineach and Dungannon were 
 afraid of their followers ; and this is borne out in a letter which 
 Mr. Solicitor Wilbraham wrote to Burleigh in December, 1591. 
 " Neither Tirlough Luineach nor the Earl dare punish their 
 followers," he writes. In the case of Dungannon (better known 
 as the Earl of Tyrone) we have repeated evidence that he 
 was quite powerless to control his followers, and he himself 
 frankly admitted as much after the execution of Hugh 
 Roe McMahon in 1591, when he excused his rebellion on 
 the grounds that he too like McMahon ran a risk of being 
 executed for this or that act of his followers over which he 
 had no control. We get a rather interesting insight into the 
 inability of this great chief to exercise any restraining influence 
 over those who were nominally his followers in the circum- 
 stances surrounding the murder of Phelim McTirlough O'Neil 
 in 1592. Tyrone (as he then was), who was at the time at Castle 
 Toome, on the northern shore of Lough Neagh, sent for Phelim 
 to come and see him, under a guarantee of safe conduct. Phelim
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 87 
 
 came, and he and Tyrone walked together to the banks of the 
 river Bann, where they had their talk. Tyrone then crossed 
 the river in a cot, and was barely at the other side before 
 " Owen, Hugh and Henry O'Hagan came to Phelim and 
 flattered him, putting hands about his neck. Then presently 
 the said Owen, who clasped him about the neck, drew his 
 sword and struck off one of his hands." (To prevent him defend- 
 ing himself.) "Then the other two struck at him, wherewith 
 he was mortally wounded."* Tyrone was asked by the 
 O'Cahans a fortnight later if he would not take steps to punish 
 the O'Hagans for violating his safe conduct, but he gave an 
 evasive reply, and we know that he took no such steps. 
 
 In 1594, again, Tyrone, after his interview with Sir Robert 
 Gardiner, begged that Captain Lee and Garrett Moore, who 
 were both personal friends of his, might ride back part of the 
 way with him, which they were glad to do. But, as soon as 
 they got into Tyrone's country, the O'Hagans threatened the 
 two Englishmen with their spears and drove them back in spite 
 of their chief's protests. The actual relations existing between 
 chiefs and people were curious. It would seem as though the 
 former figured rather as semi-deities than as material leaders. 
 The primitive god punishes or rewards according to his mood, 
 which is more often than not malevolent. In the light of this 
 interpretation of deity, the more notable Ulster chiefs were 
 undoubtedly little gods, for their power over life, limb and 
 property was absolute. As gods, too, their persons were sacred. 
 Mountjoy put a price of 2,000 marks on Tyrone alive, and 1,000 
 marks dead, but no man could be found to lay a hand on him. 
 The curious feature of the case, however, is that the religious 
 atmosphere which surrounded the person of the chief was very 
 far from giving him full executive authority. This, in Tyrone's 
 case, was vested in the O'Hagans ; in the case of Shane in the 
 Donnellys. 
 
 To return to the bonaght system, the absence of any head 
 control or restrictive discipline left the peasants wholly at the 
 mercy of the fighting men, from whom they received none. The 
 Irish peasants of the sixteenth century were reckoned by their 
 chiefs, and by the standing armies of their chiefs, as of less 
 account than cattle. Neil Garv frankly told Docwra in 1601 
 that he would not have cared a straw if 1,000 of his people had 
 * Ever McRory O'NeiJ to Deputy, Cal. State Papers 1598, Vol. 170, 14.
 
 88 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 died of a famine of his own creation. Nor was it as though the 
 peasantry could look to the armed parasites who sucked their 
 blood for protection from outside enemies. Such was far from 
 being the case. At the first approach of enemy raiders they 
 were left to their fate, and as the success of a tribal invasion 
 was solely gauged by the number of cattle seized, and the 
 number of defenceless inhabitants killed, the only hope of the 
 latter lay in effective concealment. Sidney, who passed through 
 Connaught at a time when one chief's swordsmen were raiding 
 a neighbour's peasantry, was filled with pity for the state of the 
 poor hunted natives, who, " almost distraught out of their wits 
 by daily terror for their lives, would have mcved the stoniest 
 heart to pity." 
 
 In the eyes of the wise-heads of England these chronic tribal 
 massacres were all due to the tanistry system, and both 
 Henry VIII. and Elizabeth worked assiduously to substitute 
 the custom of primogeniture, but it is to be doubted whether 
 in this endeavour they had the whole-hearted support of their 
 officers in Ireland. These had their own axes to grind, and a 
 peaceful and contented Ireland was not wholly to their financial 
 advantage. So the tanistry system continued to flourish. The 
 evil was, in fact, a growing one, for it is obviously easier and 
 pleasanter to do no work and to rob and kill those who do, than 
 to work and be killed for doing so. The ranks of the swords- 
 men were therefore being constantly recruited from among 
 those who would otherwise have been cultivating the soil, 
 so that as the burden on the land increased so did its productive- 
 ness decrease. Another evil of the system, as Perrot pointed 
 out to the Privy Council ten years later, was that " men care but 
 for their own time when they cannot build for their children." 
 Although the attempt to substitute the primogeniture custom 
 for the tanistry system was very far from popular, many of 
 the minor chiefs, such as Magennis, O'Hanlon and O'Reilly, 
 expressed a welcome appreciation of the proposed change. The 
 acquiescence, however, of living chiefs had obviously no binding 
 effect on a situation which could only arise after their death. 
 The moment this occurred, the dead chief's conversion to the 
 new system counted" for nothing, and all his relations at once 
 began fighting for the vacancy with the usual sacrifice of inno- 
 cents.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Tirlough Luineach nominates Shane Oge his tanist Release of Shane's sons 
 Henry McShane His misfortunes His brothers Con McCalvagh becomes 
 Tirlough Luineach's commander-in-chief Tirlough Luineach's expedition 
 against the O'ReillysDeath of Shane Oge Capture of Con Energetic 
 action of Tirlough Luineach Death of Con McCalvagh His character 
 Fight at Drumleen Hugh Gallagher Hugh Roe O'Donnell His alliance 
 with Tyrone's daughter His capture by Perrot. 
 
 THE official nomination of Dungannon as tanist was a 
 serious blow to the aspirations of Shane's sons, and it 
 was riot long before Tirlough Luineach himself bitterly repented 
 of his rash move. The Blackwater carouse, indeed, was the 
 last occasion on which the O'Neil and the future Earl of Tyrone 
 appeared as anything but candid enemies. The first serious 
 breach was caused by Dungannon's shameful treatment of his 
 new wife, who, after a few years, succumbed to ill-usage and 
 neglect. Tirlough Luineach felt the affront to his blood very 
 deeply, and, after his lands had several times been raided and 
 harried by his son-in-law, he felt that it was time to act. He 
 accordingly made a public repudiation of his rash nomination, 
 and, in place of the treacherous and ungrateful Dungannon, 
 named Shane Oge O'Neil (a son of old Shane) as his official 
 tanist.* Both Shane Oge, and his brothers Henry and Con, 
 had up to this point been Tirlough Luineach's prisoners, but, 
 in order to signalize his change of attitude, and his final renuncia- 
 tion of his unworthy son-in-law, they were all three now released. 
 It would seem that at first Tirlough Luineach was in some little 
 doubt as to which of the three to select, but Tyrone's letter to 
 Drury makes it quite clear that Shane Oge was his final choice, 
 being probably preferred before Con on account of his name, and 
 of his pure Irish blood. Henry, the eldest, was never in any 
 sense an eligible candidate, any spirit he might originally have 
 inherited having been crushed out of him long back by pro- 
 tracted imprisonment. His father, Shane, had originally left 
 * Tyrone to Drury, Jan. 1579. 
 8 9
 
 90 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 this most unfortunate man in Dublin Castle as a pledge for his 
 own good behaviour ; but though by the custom of the times 
 Henry's life had been forfeited by the rebellious and defiant 
 acts of his father, the punishment was not exacted. Henry was 
 kept in confinement till 1575, when Sidney took him away with 
 him on his expedition to the north, and he was transferred into 
 the keeping of Tirlough Luineach, as part of a bargain arrived 
 at. Tirlough Luineach kept Henry for nine years, but in 1584 
 thinking, no doubt, to relieve himself of a prisoner who was of 
 no political value, and, at the same time, to gain favour with the 
 Deputy he took him to Newry and there formally transferred 
 him into the keeping of Sir John Perrot. So poor Henry went 
 back once more to Dublin Castle, where he joined his brother 
 Art. Tyrone did his best to get Perrot to hang the two 
 brothers,* but without success, and in 1591 they both escaped, 
 in company with Hugh Roe O'Donnell. Art died on the way, 
 but Henry and Hugh Roe succeeded in reaching Dungannon, 
 where the latter was sent on his way with a blessing, and the 
 former put in chains by Tyrone. At Dungannon Henry once 
 more found a brother as a fellow-prisoner, in the shape of Brian, 
 and later on Con was destined to join them ; after which the 
 three brothers were separated, two being kept in Leinster and 
 one in Ulster on different islands or " Crannoges." 
 
 In 1580 Dungannon, though discarded and disinherited by 
 the reigning O'Neil, was still the Government nominee for the 
 succession, and in spite of several most uncivilized lapses 
 was still Elizabeth's hope for the regeneration of Ulster. The 
 chance of his peaceable accession in spite of all his short- 
 comings was enhanced by the striking unworthiness of all 
 the other eligible candidates. At the time when Tirlough 
 Luineach disowned Dungannon as his tanist and successor, 
 Shane's sons were all in very low water, and with no pronounced 
 following, outside of the Donnelly sept. Henry, Con and Shane 
 Oge were Tirlough Luineach's prisoners, Art and Hugh were in 
 Scotland, Brian was Dungannon 's prisoner, and Tirlough, the 
 youngest, was living in great poverty and under English pro- 
 tection in Carrickfergus.j 1 Tirlough Luineach's eldest and 
 favourite son Henry had been accidentally killed in 1578, 
 during an unsuccessful raid into the O'Gallagher country 
 
 * H. Hoveden to Deputy, Jan. 30th, 1585, 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 178, 72.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 91 
 
 (central Donegal), and his two surviving sons, Art and Cormac, 
 were degenerates of little account. The sons of Tirlough 
 Braselagh, the representatives of the elder branch of the O' Neils, 
 were the only other possible candidates, and they had but a 
 scanty backing. 
 
 Tirlough Luineach : s selection of Shane Oge as his tanist was 
 only tentative, and was not destined to have any marked effect 
 on the future course of events, for reasons which came about as 
 follows : Tirlough Luineach, in his younger days, had been a 
 good warrior, in fact he had been Shane's chief commander 
 in the field ; but, as he grew older, his military ardour rather 
 abated, and of later years he had left active operations in the 
 field to others, and devoted himself exclusively to the wine 
 flagon. So deep were his potations that in 1583 he was actually 
 reported dead, and was, in fact, laid out with honours in his 
 Castle of Strabane. The inevitable sycophant galloped over 
 to Dungannon and imparted the glad tidings to the Baron, who 
 immediately betook himself to Tullahogue, and there went 
 through the ceremony of investiture. Tirlough Luineach, 
 however, was not dead, but only very drunk, and, after lying 
 in a death-like trance for twenty-four hours, he astonished the 
 assembled mourners by getting up and walking unsteadily 
 away.* 
 
 Tirlough Luineach 's most trusted, and at the same time his 
 most successful, general in the field was his favourite son-in- 
 law. Con McCalvagh, of whom he was extremely fond ; in fact, 
 the affection between these two was of a very remarkable order. 
 It will be remembered that, when Essex persuaded O'Donnell 
 to join him against Tirlough Luineach, Con stoutly refused to 
 be a party to the transaction. He was in consequence arrested 
 and sent to Dublin Castle, to the unmeasured joy of his wicked 
 uncle O'Donnell, who promptly seized upon Con's strongholds 
 of Lifford and Castle Finn, as well as upon all his cattle. Tir- 
 lough Luineach strongly suspected O'Donnell of having insti- 
 gated Con's arrest for his own evil ends, and from that time on 
 the two were at bitter, though somewhat desultory, enmity. Con 
 very soon effected his escape from Dublin Castle with the friendly 
 connivance of Sidney, to whom the injustice of Essex's high- 
 handed action was apparent. But, though free, Con found 
 himself practically homeless, and without a following, and, in 
 * Fcnton to Walsingham, June 19th, 1583,
 
 92 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 this predicament, his father-in-law took him in and found him 
 a home in Strabane. 
 
 Con now became the recognized commander of Tirlough 
 Luineaeh's field forces, and in 1581 he inflicted a very heavy 
 defeat on his uncle at Kiltole, near Raphoe. Six hundred of the 
 O'Donnells were killed, and Sir John O'Dogherty and McS weeny 
 Dogh were taken prisoners. The former died very shortly after- 
 wards. After the battle, the two rival chiefs moved eastwards, 
 and encamped on opposite sides of the Foyle, while their 
 respective wives Lady Agnes and Ineenduv carried on poli- 
 tical negotiations across the water. No negotiations, however, 
 could cancel the legitimate fruits of victory, and Lifford passed 
 once more into the hands of Con, the son of Calvagh. Con was 
 not destined to enjoy his recovered possessions for long. His 
 health had for some time past been failing, and it soon became 
 apparent to Tirlough Luineach that he would have to look out 
 for a new commander. The obvious person indicated by all 
 the circumstances was Shane Oge, and, shortly after the battle 
 of Kiltole, Tirlough Luineach resolved to give this son of old 
 Shane a trial. A suitable opportunity was found in the un- 
 popular behaviour of Sir Hugh O'Reilly, who for some time past 
 had been conducting himself as a law-abiding citizen, and in 
 various other ways outraging the time-honoured traditions 
 of Ulster. Shane Oge, accompanied by his brother Con, was 
 sent with 300 horsemen to bring this misguided chief to a more 
 suitable frame of mind. At first the enterprise went smoothly 
 enough. No opposition was met with, and the usual work of 
 devastation and indiscriminate slaughter proceeded quite 
 satisfactorily, till the raiders unsuspectingly rode into an 
 ambush, which had been skilfully laid for them by O'Reilly's 
 two sons John and Philip. The O'Reillys had only been able 
 to get together 34 horse and 40 foot, but the overthrow of the 
 invaders from Tyrone was immediate and thorough. Shane 
 and five others were killed,* his brother Con was taken prisoner, 
 and the remainder spurred vigorously for home.'f' 
 
 The capture of Con roused Tirlough Luineach from his 
 habitual lethargy, and, putting himself at the head of a formid- 
 able army, he bore down on the O'Reillys, and promptly de- 
 
 * Carew MSS., Sept. 1581. 
 
 t Sir N. Maltby to Leicester, Sept. 21st, 1581. Loftus to Privy Council, 
 Oct. 1581,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 93 
 
 manded Con's release. Sir Hugh had no option but to comply. 
 He had no army with which to face Tirlough Luineach's num- 
 bers, and Con McShane went back to Strabane. It was freely 
 rumoured that Tirlough Luineach then nominated Con McShane 
 as his tanist in the place of his dead brother, but it is quite certain 
 that he did not repeat the experiment of putting his armed 
 forces under the command of an amateur, for six months later, 
 i.e., in the spring of 1582, we find Con McCalvagh once more 
 conducting a raiding party into Sligo. Very little opposition 
 was met with, and the greater part of Sligo was wasted and 
 pillaged, and the town itself burnt.* This proved to be Con 
 McCalvagh's last appearance in the field, for his health now 
 declined very rapidly, and in March, 1583, he died. He had 
 inherited many of the good qualities of his father Calvagh. 
 He was an able commander in the field, and of a generous and 
 honest disposition. Cusack, who liked him greatly as a boy, 
 had taught him to both speak and write English. The Four 
 Masters' tribute to his memory does not add greatly to his 
 renown : " He was a sedate and affable man," they say, " who 
 spent much of his wealth in the purchase of poems and pane- 
 gyrics." Poor Con's "wealth" during the greater part of his 
 life was limited to the 6s. 8d. per day which was allowed him 
 by the English Government. 
 
 Tirlough Luineach now found himself in some difficulty in 
 the matter of a military commander. After the disastrous failure 
 of Shane Oge in Cavan, he was not greatly inclined to entrust 
 his armed forces to the leadership of either of the other sons of 
 Shane who were at the time in his custody. The need, however, 
 for an efficient commander was very urgent, and this fact was 
 soon to be painfully brought home to him by the result of the 
 battle of Drumleen. In this encounter, which took place 
 six months only after Con McCalvagh's death, the Tyrone men 
 were very ignominiously worsted by O'Donnell. They were 
 forced back to the bank of the flooded Finn, and as at 
 Fersatmore seventeen years before of those who took to the 
 water in order to escape the sword a number were drowned. "j" 
 
 After his victory O'Donnell marched straight on to Lifford, 
 which he levelled to the ground, and then, crossing the Mourne, 
 burned Stiabane. Tirlough Luineach, whose forces were now 
 
 Maltby to Walsingham, July 12th, 1582. Four Masters. 
 Four Masters.
 
 94 
 
 completely demoralized, did not await his coming, but took him- 
 self off to the better security of Dunalong, which O'Donnell was 
 either too careless or too cautious to invest. The disaster at 
 Drumleen made it quite clear to Tirlough Luineach that, unless 
 he was quite prepared to lose all his prestige and the greater 
 part of his possessions, he had no time to lose before providing 
 himself with an efficient commander to take the place of the late 
 Con McCalvagh. Such a man opportunely presented himself in 
 the shape of one Hugh Gallagher (otherwise known as Hugh 
 McDegany) who represented himself to be a son of Calvagh 
 O'Donnell, and therefore half-brother to the late Con. On the 
 strength of this assumed lineage he laid claims to the lands of 
 Lifford and Castle Finn, and appealed to Tirlough Luineach to 
 help him against Hugh McManus, as he had helped his half- 
 brother before him. Hugh Gallagher, as a matter of fact, was 
 an impostor. The Four Masters will have none of his preten- 
 sions, but pronounce him to have been the son of Dean Gallagher, 
 as most unquestionably he ought to have been. The man 
 clearly had some military capacity, and Tirlough Luineach, 
 recognizing this, was not disposed to look too closely into the 
 question of his parentage, but accepted him for what he claimed 
 to be, and appointed him his official commander-in-chief. 
 Gallagher for all the doubts that were thrown on his claims to 
 O'Donnell blood was not without a considerable following of his 
 own in Donegal ; and the alliance with Tirlough Luineach so 
 increased his prestige and armed resources that the stability 
 of Hugh McManus' s position was for the time rather seriously 
 threatened. It was rarely indeed, however, that a reigning 
 chieftain was actually supplanted, and Gallagher realizing 
 this wisely determined to abandon the direct quest, and to 
 focus all his energies on the more attainable goal of the succes- 
 sion. In this aim he had no very formidable rival in Hugh 
 McManus' s eldest son Donnell, whose mother had been one of 
 the many daughters of Tirlough Luineach. Donnell was a 
 weak creature, with little of the ambition or virility of Gallagher, 
 and if it had come to a fight between these two, Donnell' s chances 
 would have been small. 
 
 Behind Donnell, however, was a much more disturbing figure, 
 in the shape of one Hugh Roe O'Donnell, the eldest sr>n of Hugh 
 McManus' s second wife Ineenduv. This boy was only fourteen 
 years of age at the time when Gallagher took over the command
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 95 
 
 of Tirlough Luineach's forces, but he was very highly spoken of, 
 and there were many prophecies current in the country as to 
 the great future that lay before him. There was an old tradition 
 that, when Hugh O'Donnell the son succeeded Hugh O'Donnell 
 the father on to the Kilmacrenan stone, Ireland would be 
 united under one King, who was, of course, to be the second 
 Hugh. Hugh Roe, however, had something more substantial 
 than prophecies at the back of his claim to the succession. He 
 had, in the first place, in his mother Ineenduv, a partisan of 
 untiring energy and through her Scotch connection with 
 exceptional opportunities for raising a formidable fighting force 
 when required. He was also incidentally betrothed to an 
 illegitimate daughter of the man whom we may in future call 
 the Earl of Tyrone, and whose support he could therefore be 
 assured of in any conflict for the succession. As a matter of 
 fact though Hugh Roe lived with this lady and was commonly 
 reckoned as Tyrone's son-in-law, and though Tyrone speaks of 
 him as his son-in-law at the time of his capture by Perrot* 
 he did not actually go through the form of marriage with her 
 till the year 1597. He had in the meanwhile deferred the cere- 
 mony in the hopes of procuring in marriage the daughter of the 
 Earl of Clanricarde, an alliance which would have brought the 
 greater part of Connaught under his dominion. Only when this 
 failed did he finally make Tyrone's daughter his legal wife.'f 
 However, even the informal alliance was a source of strength. 
 It was common talk in the north that young Hugh Roe was the 
 rising star of Donegal, and a star whose orbit Ineenduv was fully 
 determined should not be interfered with by the transit of any 
 interfering, meddling bodies. Nevertheless, it was at the 
 outset very seriously interfered with, and that by the indirect 
 means of Hugh Gallagher. That scheming impostor, with a 
 view to disposing of his more formidable rival, unfolded to Perrot 
 a plan by which young Hugh Roe might easily be snared and 
 kept out of harm's way till the future of Ulster was more 
 assured, and Perrot, scenting ransom in the transaction, eagerly 
 fell in with the suggestion. 
 
 A small ship laden with strong and seductive wine was sent 
 round to Lough Swilly. Some casks were sent ashore at Rath- 
 mullen and broached for the benefit of McSweeny Fanad and 
 
 * Tyrone to Leicester, Feb. 1588. 
 
 t Bagenal to Deputy, April 6th, 1597.
 
 96 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 his people, who speedily became very drunk indeed.* Hugh 
 Roe heard the good tidings as Gallagher took very good 
 care that he should and was quickly on the spot. By that 
 time the McSweenys had disposed of most of the available 
 supply, but the young O'Donnell's appetite was sufficiently 
 whetted by the little that remained. He was told that no 
 more could be landed, but that there was plenty more on the 
 ship if he liked to make the journey across the Lough in a cot 
 which was waiting. Hugh Roe asked for nothing better ; the 
 ship was boarded, and good Gascony without stint was placed 
 before him, with which he rapidly drunk himself into uncon- 
 sciousness. By the time he recovered his senses he was well 
 on his way to Dublin. 
 
 This happened in 1587. Ineenduv never forgave Gallagher 
 for his share in the transaction, and, two years later, she managed 
 to have him waylaid and assassinated while on his way to 
 attend a meeting at Mongavlin. This, however, is getting 
 ahead of events, and it is time to leave the parochial affairs 
 of Donegal and to return to matters of wider national interest. 
 
 * Four Masters.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Lord Grey's activity against the Scots He lays waste the Route Defeat of 
 Dawtrey and Chatterton Invasion of Fanad by the McCleans under Art 
 and Hugh McShane Exaggerated accounts of the numbers Perrot's for- 
 midable preparations Flight of the Scots Perrot attacks the Bann 
 country Capture of Oliver Lambert by Brian Carragh He is transferred 
 to the keeping of Art and Hugh McShane Perrot invests Dunluce Castle 
 Its great strength Extermination of the garrison Perrot returns south, 
 leaving Bagenal in charge Battle of Glenarm Defeat and flight of Bagenal 
 Invasion of Rathlin Island Flight of Sorley Boy Competition between 
 Angus McDonnell and Sorley Boy for the Glynns Angus obtains a grant 
 of the Glynns Landing of Alexander McDonnell He retakes Dunluce 
 Castle and Coleraine Friary Is defeated in Inishowen by Captain Merriman 
 Death of Alexander Oge McDonnell. 
 
 SIR JOHN PERROT, great as his faults may have been 
 in other directions, was certainly one of the most ener- 
 getic Deputies Ireland had yet seen. He was accused by his 
 enemies of unduly favouring the Irish chiefs to the detriment 
 of Her Majesty's interests ; and it was further hinted that, 
 where Her Majesty had lost, Sir John Perrot had gained, which 
 is more than probable. With a view to distracting the Queen's 
 attention from his questionable relations with the Irish chiefs, 
 and the consequent dwindling of her revenues from these sources, 
 Perrot thought it good to embark on a series of vigorous cam- 
 paigns against the Scots in the north. It is true that this 
 policy was in a sense forced upon him by events for which his 
 predecessor was responsible. Acting on the advice of Fenton, 
 the Permanent Secretary and the inveterate enemy of the 
 Ulster Scots, Lord Grey had ordered Captains Dawtrey and 
 Chatterton to muster the Carrickfergus garrison and march 
 north to the assistance of McQuillin, who was very decidedly 
 getting the worst of a dispute with Sorley Boy over the boun- 
 dary question. On approaching the Route, the English force- 
 was joined by McQuillin and by Hugh McPhelim (Sir Brian's 
 brother), who, since his release from Dublin Castle, had estab- 
 lished himself with the Government approval in the Castle 
 of Edenduffcarrick* on the north shore of Lough Neagh. These 
 
 * Shane's Castle. 
 
 97 7
 
 98 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 two chiefs were at the moment in alliance against the Scots, 
 but were too weak to take the offensive unaided. The arrival 
 of Dawtrey and Chatterton, however, put an altogether different 
 complexion on the affair. The English and the Irish joined 
 forces, and the combined party advanced over the disputed 
 border, and was able to lay waste much of the Route without 
 interference. Had they then returned, all might have been 
 well, but they unfortunately overstayed the limits of prudence, 
 with most unhappy results. The Four Masters laconically 
 record the sequence of events as follows : " Great depredations 
 were committed on Sorley Boy by Hugh, the son of Phelim 
 Bacagh, by McQuillin and the English. Sorley Boy went in 
 pursuit of the preys, defeated those who were before them, 
 deprived them of the preys and slew Hugh McPhelim and a 
 Company or two of the English." The truth was that the 
 invading party was too greedy, and spent so long a time plunder- 
 ing, that Lady Agnes was able to send a party of Scots from 
 Strabane across the River Bann to co-operate with Sorley Boy,* 
 who, otherwise, would have been too weak to offer much resist- 
 ance. The result was the complete overthrow of the invaders. 
 Hugh McPhelim, Captain Chatterton and seventy of the English 
 were killed, and all the driven prey recovered. "j" This disaster 
 was naturally the subject of very unfavourable comment on 
 the part of the Queen, but mainly owing to the change of 
 Deputy no serious steps were taken to restore the Govern- 
 ment prestige till the accession of Perrot a year later. Perrot's 
 expedition to the north, however, was prompted by something 
 more pressing than an altruistic desire to avenge a reverse for 
 which his predecessor was responsible. A party of McCleans, 
 from Scotland, really very few in number, J but magnified by 
 native estimates into an army of many thousands, had landed 
 in Lough S willy under the leadership of Hugh and Art McShane, 
 and had eaten bare the neighbouring district of Fanad. Their 
 avowed aim was the re-establishment of Shane's sons (the mother 
 of Hugh and Art had been a McClean) in the chiefry, or at all 
 events in the succession to the chiefry, of O'Neil. The more 
 immediate objects of their hostility were Dungannon, who had 
 usurped the succession, and Tirlough Luineach, who held two 
 
 * Maltby to Burleigh, April, 1583. 
 
 t Lords Justices to Privy Council, April 29th, 1583. 
 
 J Privy Council to Deputy, Aug. 31st, 1584.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 99 
 
 other sons of Shane (Henry and Con) in captivity. The invad- 
 ing party from Scotland was joined by O'Cahan, and as was 
 only to be expected by the whole sept of Donnellys. These 
 latter, however, only numbered some three hundred, and the 
 whole enterprise appears to have been very far from formidable. 
 None the less, the exaggerated accounts of the terrified 
 McS weeny s found ready credence in Dublin,* and Perrot, within 
 two months of the day when he received the sword, got together 
 a strong mixed force and set out to meet the Scotch menace in 
 the north. A barque laden with provisions and convoyed by 
 Her Majesty's ship Handmaid, under command of Captain 
 Carlisle (a son-in-law of Walsingham), was ordered to co-operate 
 by sea ; and, while the land party was slowly marching north, 
 these two ships were sent ahead with the idea of frustrating 
 any attempt on the part of the Scots to escape by sea. These, 
 however, somehow got news of the Deputy's intentions, and, by 
 the time the two Government ships sailed into Lough Swilly, 
 the McCleans were already half-way back to Scotland. Hugh 
 and Art McShane, who had for several years past made their 
 home in Scotland, did not return with the others, but were taken 
 charge of by the Donnellys, and for the tiriie being in view of 
 Perrot's approach remained hidden in Glenconkein. 
 
 Perrot, having had all the trouble of getting together his 
 expeditionary force, had no intention of being baulked of a 
 prey by the mere fact of the McCleans having escaped him. As 
 soon, therefore, as he learnt that these had taken to the sea, he 
 determined to change his objective from Donegal to the Route, 
 a decision that was not uninfluenced by the knowledge that the 
 two sons of Shane were in hiding somewhere to the east of the 
 Foyle. Towards the Bann, then, he turned the head of his 
 column. With him went the Earls of Ormonde and Thomond, 
 the Baron of Dungannon, Sir Henry Bagenal, who had now 
 succeeded his father as Marshal, and Sorley Boy's old enemy, 
 Captain John Norris, of Rathlin Island fame. To provide 
 against any possibility of a hostile flank movement on the part 
 of Tirlough Luineach or Lady Agnes, both the O'Neil and his 
 wife were ordered to report themselves to the Deputy on the 
 Bann, which they obediently did. Perrot's dispositions were 
 singularly thorough. After passing Lough Neagh he divided 
 his forces, John Norris, his brother Henry and Dungannon 
 * Perrot to Privy Council, Aug. 21st, 1584. 
 
 7*
 
 100 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 exploring the country on the left bank of the Bann more 
 particularly Brian Carragh's country, which they thoroughly 
 devastated while Perrot himself, with the two Earls, worked 
 the country on the right. There was nothing in the nature of 
 a pitched battle, but desultory skirmishing took place all the 
 time, in the course of which Henry Norris was wounded in the 
 knee, and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Oliver Lambert was taken pri- 
 soner by Brian Carragh. Lambert, immediately upon his 
 capture, was carried off into Glenconkein, where Brian Carragh 
 (who was an obscure scion of the McDonald clan) handed him 
 over to the keeping of Hugh and Art McShane. He appears 
 to have been well treated, so well treated, in fact, that, after 
 two months of captivity, he wrote to Perrot from the Blackwater 
 expressing the opinion that Hugh McShane was " an honest, 
 Courteous and wise young man, civilly brought up and speaketh 
 English."* 
 
 (n the meanwhile, Perrot took possession of the Coleraine 
 Friary and Dumferte ( Bally reagh) Castle, which was found 
 unoccupied, and finally, towards the middle of September, 
 arrived opposite Dunluce Castle in the Route, which was found 
 to be garrisoned by Angus and Alexander McRandall Boy and 
 forty Scots. " I am encamped before Dunluce," Perrot wrote 
 to the Privy Council on September 15th, " the strongest piece 
 of this realm, situated on a rock hanging over the sea, divided 
 from the main with a broad deep rocky ditch, natural and not 
 artificial, and having no way to it but a small neck of the same 
 rock, which is also cut off very steep. It hath in it a strong 
 ward, whereof the Captain is a natural Scot, who, when I sent 
 to summon them to yield, refused talk, and proudly answered, 
 speaking very good English, that they were appointed and 
 would keep it to the last man for the King of Scotland's use.""}" 
 Two days later he added in another letter, " Having shipping 
 at hand, I have appointed from 200 to 300 footmen to go to 
 Rathlin Island to-morrow for the taking thereof. "J In the 
 meanwhile a culverin and two small brass sakers from the 
 pinnace were landed below the Castle and dragged up round 
 the edge of the cliff. These vigorous measures proved in the 
 end effective, but Perrot 's contemplated trip to Rathlin Island 
 
 * Lambert to Deputy, Oct. 23rd, 1584. 
 t Perrot to Privy Council, Sept 15th, 1584. 
 J Carew MSS., Sept. 17th, 1584.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 101 
 
 had to be put off for many weeks, for the Scots proved as good 
 as their word, and not till the two McRandall Boys and all 
 the garrison had been killed, did the Castle pass into Perrot's 
 hands.* By that time the winter was so far advanced that 
 the Rathlin Island expedition had to be postponed to the 
 spring, Perrot putting forward, as his excuse, a fear lest the 
 rivers might rise with the winter rains and hinder his return. 
 Captain Carlisle was turned from a sailor into a soldier, and 
 put in charge of Coleraine Friary, and an Englishman named 
 Peter Carey was left as Constable of Dunluce, with special 
 injunctions that he should on no account give employment 
 within the walls to any Irish, a warning, which, unhappily 
 for him, he failed to take to heart. 
 
 Perrot himself had moved south at the end of September 
 to Newry, where Tirlough Luineach met him with Henry 
 McShane. Tirlough Luineach had now, in deference to Perrot's 
 wishes, which were a reflection of the wishes of the Queen, 
 once more made Dungannon his tanist ;"j" and, as a kind of 
 earnest of his sincerity in this matter, he now formally handed 
 Henry, the eldest of Shane's sons, back into the keeping of 
 the Deputy. J So poor Henry returned with Perrot to Dublin, 
 and once more became a tenant of the Castle. John Norris 
 was left for another month in Antrim, to continue the cam- 
 paign against the Scots, but he failed to accomplish any- 
 thing further, and at the end of October he returned to Munster, 
 of which he was President, with the added dignity of knight- 
 hood. Henry Bagenal then took over the command, but the 
 campaign still dragged on uneventfully, and towards the end 
 of December the English force moved to Glenarm, where 
 Donald Gorm (James McDonnell's son) was beginning to be 
 too self-assertive for the taste and dignity of the Government. 
 Here Bagenal met with an unfortunate reverse, for Donald 
 Gorm made a surprise attack upon his camp one night, and 
 not only carried off the bulk of his horses, but killed and wounded 
 an inconvenient number of officers and men ;|| in fact, we 
 learn that Sir William Stanley, and every English officer 
 
 * Bagenal to Perrot, Nov. 16th, 1584. 
 f Lords Justices to Walsingham, March 26th, 1585. 
 j Perrot to Privy Council, Oct. 1584. 
 Cal. State Papers, Oct. 25th, 1584. 
 
 || Bagenal to Deputy, Jan. 7th, 1585. Sir William Stanley to Bagenal, 
 Jan. 5th, 1585.
 
 102 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 accompanying the force, was wounded, with the solitary ex- 
 ception of Bagenal himself, who only escaped unhurt by a 
 precipitate and according to Captain Lee a premature 
 flight, as to which many scathing comments were subsequently 
 made.* Henry Bagenal was by no means the soldier in the 
 field that his father had been, and on several subsequent 
 occasions proved himself a man of very moderate valour. 
 
 In March of the following year (1585) the deferred Rathlin 
 Island Expedition was launched. Captain Thornton succeeded 
 in capturing a Scotch galley, and in this the English force 
 was taken across in relays. To make up the necessary numbers, 
 contingents were supplied from all the forts in the district, as 
 it was felt that the occasion called for a special effort if the 
 prestige of the Government was to be restored. Sir Henry 
 Bagenal, Sir William Stanley, Captain Berkeley, Captain 
 Henshaw, Arthur Savage and young Ralph Bagenal were all 
 of the party. This time the course of events ran smoother. 
 A landing was effected without opposition, and the Castle 
 was found to be unoccupied ; but at the northern end of the 
 island the Scots were found in some force, and at that point 
 some spirited fighting took place, in which both Sorley Boy 
 and Donald Gorm took part. Sir William Stanley was again 
 wounded, and young Ralph Bagenal, we are told, did much to 
 retrieve the tarnished reputation of his family by fighting very 
 valiantly. The Scots, who naturally had been expecting the 
 attack, had a number of galleys in readiness at the north end 
 of the island, and in these they were able to effect their escape 
 to Cantyre, when the pressure of the English became too severe. 
 The women and children had already been sent across to 
 Scotland. 
 
 So once more Rathlin Island passed out of the keeping of 
 Sorley Boy. Captain Henshaw, with a small garrison, was 
 left on the island, with Arthur Savage as his lieutenant. We 
 are told that they had little joy of their commission, the island 
 being very bleak and barren, covered with rock and heather, 
 and with no trees to form a shelter from the north winds. 
 
 Perrot was highly delighted with the capture of Rathlin 
 Island, and wrote with pride to the Council in England that 
 Sorley Boy, his son Alexander, and all his nephews had fled 
 to Scotland ; that the Route was utterly wasted and Ulster 
 
 * Capt. Lee to Walsingham, Feb. 2nd, 1585.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 103 
 
 finally cleared of Scots. In the meanwhile, Angus, the eldest 
 son of the late James McDonnell and Lady Agnes, was with 
 his mother at the Court of James VI., trying to induce the 
 young Scottish King to intercede with Elizabeth to obtain for 
 him a grant of the Glynns. This was a matter over which 
 Angus and Sorley Boy had recently fallen out very seriously, 
 as each had set his heart on the possession of this coveted 
 corner of Antrim. The moment Sorley Boy had been driven 
 out of Rathlin Island he assumed the position of a humble 
 suppliant for pardon, coupling his submission with the promise 
 of eternal loyalty to the Queen if he might only be given a 
 grant of the Glynns. Angus put in a very similar petition, 
 outbidding his uncle, however, by adding to his own promise of 
 loyalty an undertaking that, if he were given the grant, he 
 would keep all other Scots out of Ulster, including Sorley Boy. 
 There is no evidence that this undertaking was taken seriously 
 or had an appreciable effect on the final result. That which 
 ultimately decided Elizabeth in favour of the younger man 
 was her firm adherence to the principle of primogeniture, which 
 clearly marked Angus out as the rightful heir to his father's 
 estates. 
 
 Sorley Boy was by now over eighty years of age, but still 
 full of energy and vigour, and he had no idea of sitting tamely 
 down and seeing himself dispossessed by his nephew in his 
 old age. He slipped across from Cantyre to Rathlin Island 
 in a small boat, and bribed one of Captain Henshaw's soldiers 
 to get a letter which he had written conveyed to Perrot in 
 Dublin.* This the soldier agreed to do, and faithfully carried 
 out his undertaking. The letter merely contained a renewal 
 of his humble protestations of loyalty, and the prayer that he 
 might be allowed to die in his beloved Glynns. " It is called 
 the Glynns," said Perrot, in writing to the Privy Council, 
 " because it is full of rocky woods and glades, and it is backed 
 by a very steep and boggy mountain " [Knocklayd]. " It lies 
 opposite to Cantyre, in Scotland." As a matter of fact, the 
 Glynns, as ultimately defined, stretched the whole way from 
 Ballycastle to Glenarm, but the Glynns proper, to which Perrot 
 refers, and to which Sorley Boy was the more devotedly 
 attached, were the present town-lands of Rathmoan and Cul- 
 feightrim. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 118-78-1.
 
 104 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 In May, 1586, all poor Sorley Boy's hopes, as far as the 
 Glynns were concerned, were dashed to the ground, for Angus, 
 on the recommendation of the Queen,* was given a formal 
 grant of the seven baronies of the Glynns, the southern boundary 
 of which was now definitely determined as excluding Larne 
 and Olderfleet Castle, the two latter places being reckoned too 
 near Carrickfergus for safety, f 
 
 It was very soon proved that Angus's promise to keep all 
 other Scots out of Ulster was a vain undertaking, for he had 
 barely been established in the Glynns before Sorley Boy's 
 fourth son, Alexander as a protest against the Government's 
 rejection of his father's suit returned his official pardon and 
 landed in the Route with 400 men. Here he was joined by 
 Neil McIIugh (who apparently bore Sorley Boy's family no 
 ill-will for having killed his father, Hugh McPhelim) and by 
 Con McNeil Oge's son. Dunluce Castle was quickly retaken, 
 with the help of some Irish within the walls, who let down 
 withy ropes, by which the walls were scaled. Poor Peter 
 Carey, the Constable, now paid the penalty for neglecting the 
 warning given him, for he was hanged over the battlements 
 of the Castle at the end of one of the very withies up which his 
 captors had climbed. J The allied forces then crossed the 
 Bann into the O'Cahan country, and there completely over- 
 powered the feeble garrison which had been left in Coleraine. 
 All Perrot's laborious work was now undone, but the victorious 
 career of the invading Scots was very near its close. Flushed 
 with their success in the Route and O'Cahan's country, they 
 ventured to cross the Foyle into Inishowen. Here, however, 
 they were brought up short by an unexpected encounter with 
 a combined English and Irish army, under Captain Merriman 
 and Hugh Gallagher, which barred their further progress at 
 the neck of the Inishowen peninsula, near Colmackatreyne 
 ( N e wto wncunningham) . 
 
 Merriman, who was sheriff of Donegal at the time, had 
 100 English with him. while Gallagher was in command of 
 his own and Tirlough Luirieach's forces. The Scots were 
 therefore very greatly outnumbered, and Alexander, recog- 
 
 * Queen to Council, Feb. 26th, 1586. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 124-29. 
 
 J Wallop to Walsingham, Nov. 18th, 1585. Hill's " McDonnells of Antrim." 
 Bagenal to Grey, Nov. 1585.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 105 
 
 nizing this, offered to fight Captain Merriman a duel between 
 the two armies, on the understanding that, if he prevailed, the 
 Scots should be allowed to go on their way into Donegal un- 
 molested. Merriman accepted the challenge, and, in the duel 
 which followed, wounded Alexander so severely in the thigh 
 that he was forced to retire into the ranks of his followers.* 
 A general battle ensued in which the Scots were worsted, and 
 twelve or thirteen of their number were killed. Alexander, 
 though severely wounded, managed to swim across to the 
 island of Inch, where he simulated death, and was laid in a 
 grave covered with rushes and surrounded by ' ; keening " 
 women. | Hugh Gallagher, however, got news of the ruse 
 adopted, and, following Alexander across to the island, he 
 quickly turned the sham grave into a real one, and sent the 
 Scot's head to Dublin, where it was exposed, according to 
 custom, on the spikes over the Castle gates. Con McNeil 
 Oge's son was also killed. J 
 
 * " Hibernia Anglicana." 
 
 t Sir R. Bingham to Burleigh, Dec. 12th, 1586. Four Masters. 
 
 j Cal. State Papers, Vol. 107-55.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Indignation of the Queen at the barren results of Perrot's expedition Recon- 
 ciliation with Sorley Boy He comes to Dublin and is given a grant of the 
 Route McQuillin's counter-claims Death of Sorley Boy His character. 
 
 THE marked disproportion between the sums spent in 
 Ulster by Perrot and the results achieved, called 
 forth some highly sarcastic comments from the Queen. She 
 wrote him a sharp note, in her own handwriting, in which 
 she acidly counselled him to be more sure of his information 
 in the future, before he wasted her money in such profitless 
 undertakings as his late journey to Ulster had proved.* She 
 pointed out with acerbity that he had spent much treasure 
 and accomplished nothing that was of the slightest value. 
 " Let us have no more such rash, unadvised journeys without 
 good ground," she concluded, " as your last fond journey to 
 the north." Perrot was much upset. He began to realize 
 for the first time that the Queen's temper in the matter of the 
 Scots had undergone a change, and, adapting his own policy 
 to her new mood, he sent Sorley Boy a friendly invitation to 
 come to Dublin and talk things over quietly. At first the old 
 man was none too eager, being slightly distrustful of the 
 Deputy's intentions, but he was finally won over by Captain 
 William Warren, whose father had been fast friends with 
 Sorley Boy's father in old days. So, in early June, 1586,"j" 
 Sorley Boy came to Dublin, marching through the Castle gates 
 under the gory head of his son Alexander. He came on his 
 knees into the presence of the Deputy, and, prostrating him- 
 self humbly before a picture of Elizabeth, reverently kissed 
 the (painted) hem of her garment. J He swore from thence- 
 
 * Queen to Perrot, April 14th, 1586. The reference to his imperfect informa- 
 tion was in connection with the fabulous reports as to the numbers of the Scots 
 who had landed in Fanad in Aug. 1584. 
 
 t Fenton to Burleigh, June 14th, 1586. 
 
 $ Cal. State Papers, Vol. 139-7. 
 
 106
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 107 
 
 forward to be a good subject to the Queen, and, in return for 
 these loyal protestations, and as a sign of their acceptance 
 as genuine, he was presented by Perrot with a costly mantle 
 of velvet and gold. 
 
 Sorley Boy was furthermore appointed Constable of Dun- 
 luce Castle, with rights over all the Route, from the Bush to 
 the Bann, including the town-lands of Loughgill, Ballymonin 
 and Dunseverick. McQuillin, who arrived in Dublin on the 
 heels of Sorley Boy and on the same errand, was at the same 
 time granted the four town-lands of Kilconmoray, Kilmoray, 
 Killaquin and Clashnaganagh,* an arrangement which left 
 him very dissatisfied indeed, for he complained that Sorley 
 Boy's lands were by far the richer of the two, which was 
 probably correct. The Friary at Coleraine and the Bann 
 fishing were excluded from any rights granted, being reserved 
 for the use of Her Majesty. Sorley Boy left his son Angus 
 (or Ness, as he was more commonly called) in the hands of 
 Sir Henry Wallop, the Treasurer, as a pledge of his fulfilment 
 of the conditions imposed, which included an undertaking 
 that he would not import, for purposes of war or agriculture, 
 more than 200 men from Scotland. 
 
 This episode marks the close of the long conflict between 
 Eli/abeth and the Ulster McDonnells. Both Angus and 
 Sorley Boy lived up to their promises, and, the moment they 
 were left alone, became loyal and peaceable subjects of the 
 Queen, Angus, in fact, proving the only loyal chief in Ulster 
 throughout the protracted course of Tyrone's rebellion. Sorley 
 Boy by that time was dead, and his sons, who were Shane 
 O'Ncil's nephews on the mother's side, proved less faithful 
 than their father, and inferior personalities in other respects. 
 
 Sorley Boy died in January, 1590, at the age of eighty-five, 
 having survived his wife eight years. Although his grant 
 was bounded by the rivers Bush and Bann, and although 
 Angus had been nominated lord of the Glynns, there is reason 
 to suppose that some composition was arrived at between 
 uncle and nephew ; for it is satisfactory to be able to record 
 that Sorley Boy died in his favourite Castle of Donananie, 
 which was certainly not within the limits of his own grant. 
 Of his real character little is known, and he may have been 
 full of the many faults of his kind and of his day, but he is 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 124 85.
 
 108 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 certainly the most picturesque figure in sixteenth-century 
 Ulster. There is something which stirs sympathy in the 
 thought of the old man, with his long yellow locks turned 
 white, being relentlessly pursued by one Deputy after another, 
 and yet never crushed, never seeking favour by means of false 
 protestations after the manner of his kind, and finally enjoy- 
 ing, for the last four years of his life, the lands for which he 
 had fought for half a century. 
 
 With the death of Sorley Boy, all the old McDonnell names 
 disappear permanently from Ulster history. Angus, in spite 
 of the success of his application for the Glynns, continued to 
 live in Cantyre with the remnant of his sons, his Ulster estate 
 being managed by an agent 'named Randall McNess. The 
 only representatives of the clan who stayed in the country 
 were Sorley Boy's three sons, James, Randall and Angus,* 
 of whom the first two occupied Dunluce Castle, while the third 
 was for the time being a hostage in Dublin. 
 
 * A much younger illegitimate son of Sorley Boy named Loder, or Lothei, 
 also remained in Ulster. He was implicated in Rory O'Cahan's attempted 
 rebellion in 1615.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Perrot's partition of Ulster. 
 
 BY far the most important of Perrot's administrative 
 acts was his division of Ulster into counties in 1586. 
 The new counties numbered nine, and were as follows : Cavan, 
 Fermanagh and Monaghan ; Armagh, Down and Antrim ; 
 Donegal, Tyrone and Coleraine. 
 
 Cavan had been the country of that exemplary subject, 
 Sir Hugh O'Reilly. The old man died in 1583, and his son 
 Shane (or John), who succeeded, spoke English as well as his 
 father, and was reputed as good a man in other ways. His 
 good conduct, however as will presently be seen was not 
 long proof against Tyrone's insidious counsels. 
 
 Monaghan and Fermanagh were respectively the countries 
 of Sir Ross McMahon and Sir Cuconnaught Maguire, both of 
 whom, under the new management, remained urraghs (or 
 tributary vassals) of O'Neil. These three counties had, for 
 many years, formed the most peaceable group in Ulster, but 
 were soon destined to be converted, by the dealings of one 
 Government official, into the cradle of the great rebellion 
 which disturbed the last ten years of Elizabeth's reign. 
 
 The next natural group of three comprised Donegal, Tyrone 
 and Coleraine. Donegal which was the old Tyrconnell 
 was O'Donnell's country, with O'Boyle, O'Gallagher and the 
 three McSweeneys, his acknowledged urraghs. O'Dogherty's 
 position in Inishowen was less clearly denned, as his lands 
 were systematically claimed by both O'Neil and O'Donnell, 
 and between the two of them he generally managed to keep 
 his independence. His two main strongholds were Derry and 
 Ellaugh Castle. 
 
 The county of Coleraine, locally known as the Kryne, was 
 the O'Cahan's country, whose headquarters were at Limavady. 
 He, too, was an urragh of O'Neil. 
 
 109
 
 110 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 The county of Tyrone was divided by Perrot between Tir- 
 lough Luineach and Dungannon, whom we may now call the 
 Earl of Tyrone, that title having been definitely conferred on 
 him by the Parliament of 1585. The conditions of this curious 
 arrangement were that Tyrone should lease from Tirlough 
 Luineach, for a period of seven years from the date of the 
 agreement, the south-eastern half of the O'Neil territory, 
 i.e., everything lying to the south-east of the mountain of 
 Mullaghcarn, for an annual rent of a thousand marks. The 
 lands of which Tyrone became in this way the absolute lord 
 for he never paid a penny of his rent during the whole seven 
 years were Glenconkein and Killetagh, and all Tyrone proper 
 east of the line running from the mountain of Mullaghcarn 
 to the Blackwater, the Trough in County Monaghan, and 
 Clan Brassil in County Armagh. The period of the so-called 
 lease was fixed at seven years, because it was deemed a cer- 
 tainty by all parties except Tirlough himself that by that 
 time the O'Neil would be dead. 
 
 The practical effect of this most foolish and unjust measure 
 of Perrot's was that the newly-created Earl of Tyrone, in the 
 full sunshine of the Government favour, became a richer and 
 more powerful chief than the reigning O'Neil. His chief 
 Castle was at Dungannon, for Shane's old house at Benburb 
 had never been repaired since Sidney had burned it, and was 
 in ruins, but he had subsidiary residences at Castle Roe on the 
 Bann and at Ballynascanlon. Tirlough Luineach was limited 
 to his two Castles of Strabane and Dunalong. 
 
 A curious condition of the arrangement made between Perrot 
 and Tirlough Luineach was that the latter was to dismiss his 
 Scotch army and maintain in its place a standing force of 
 300 English soldiers, O'Donnell being bound under the same 
 agreement to maintain 200. The late Marshal, Sir Nicholas 
 Bagenal, who was now a very old man and a permanent 
 resident in Dublin, warned Perrot against this scheme, which 
 he predicted was foredoomed to failure ; as either the English 
 would degenerate and adopt native habits, or else they would 
 be gradually made away with by a population which viewed 
 their establishment in their midst with a suspicious and un- 
 friendly eye. The religious question was beginning to make 
 itself very strongly felt in Ulster, and though kept to a certain 
 extent below the surface was in a sense the dominating
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 111 
 
 factor in all the Elizabethan rebellions. The periodical 
 invasions of the Roman Catholic Scots from the Western 
 Highlands aroused neither resentment nor uneasiness among 
 the natives, but there was a very different feeling abroad 
 when the invaders were English Protestants. Bagenal pre- 
 dicted a short and troubled existence for Perrot's resident 
 soldiers, and he was right. In Donegal the problem did not 
 arise, for O'Donnell made no attempt to live up to his agree- 
 ment, and later on by way of a composition proposed a 
 payment of 450 beeves, which, needless to say, were never 
 produced. 
 
 Tirlough Luineach, however, faithfully took on his quota 
 of 300, and kept them as long as they would stay. This, as 
 events proved, was about six months, for the Marshal's prophecy 
 turned out unhappily true. Stragglers from the camp did 
 not return, and the 300 gradually dwindled, till the survivors 
 determined that life would be safer in the Pale, and made 
 their way back there in a body. In the case of the Earl, Perrot 
 made no stipulation as to the maintenance of English soldiers, 
 for Tyrone was at the moment the spoilt darling of the Govern- 
 ment and superior to such arrangements, but he planted upon 
 him the two English brothers, Richard and Henry Ovington 
 (corrupted into Hoveden), whose intended mission was a 
 continuance of his English education, but whose ultimate 
 influence on the Earl was of a widely different character. Two 
 hundred acres round the Blackwater fort were reserved for the 
 Crown, and on this land Captain Keyes, the Constable, set to 
 work building, and soon had rough quarters erected, capable 
 of accommodating 400 soldiers. 
 
 In Armagh, Tirlough Braselagh had Clanbrassil in the north, 
 Tirlough McHenry had the Fews in the south, and O'Hanlon 
 ruled rather unsteadily over the centre. 
 
 The ownership of Down was a far more complicated affair. 
 Down was subdivided into South Clandeboye, Kilwarlin, the 
 Dufferin, McCartan's country, the Ards, Iveagh (Magennis* 
 country), Lecale and Mourne. 
 
 As may readily be understood, the limits of real estate in 
 Ireland were never very clearly defined, except in cases where 
 some natural boundary, such as a river, separated the pro- 
 perty of two neighbours. In County Down this vagueness of 
 boundaries was especially noticeable. Magennis' country and
 
 112 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 McCartan's country were elastic terms, the meaning of which 
 varied with the predatory capacity of each successive owner. 
 McCartan's country technically embraced the Dufferin, but, 
 at the time of Perrot's distribution scheme, McCartan had 
 little strength of following, and the country that carried his 
 name was, to a great extent, in the hands of others. The 
 Dufferin, which had once been the property of the Mandevilles, 
 was at the time of Perrot's partition farmed by Randall 
 Brereton,* but before the end of the century it had passed 
 into the hands of Sir Nicholas Whyte's family. It is described 
 as a small country in extent, but densely clothed with im- 
 penetrable woods, which made it the chosen home of brigands 
 and loose men. To the north of it was South Clandeboye, 
 to the west of it Kilwarlin with Killultagh beyond, and to the 
 north east of it McCartan's country and the Ards. To the 
 south-west lay Magennis' country, to the south-east Lecale, 
 and beyond that again Mourne. Lecale, at the end of the 
 sixteenth century, was a treeless district, which nominally 
 belonged to the Countess of Kildare, having been granted to 
 her father-in-law by Queen Mary."}" Its freedom from woods 
 made it one of the safest countries in Ulster, and in Perrot's 
 day there was still the remains there of a small colony of Eng- 
 lish, who had been brought over in old days by Sir John Cowsie, 
 viz., Savages, Russells, Jordans, Audleys, Bentleys and 
 Fitzsimmons, " who still remain, though somewhat in poor 
 estate."J 
 
 Mourne was mainly farmed by the Bagenals. Little Ards 
 was the property of Arthur Savage, who rented it to Captain 
 Piers the younger, i.e., the nephew of the old Carrickfergus 
 Constable. Great Ards was part of the property of Con McNeil 
 Oge, whose estates also included South Clandeboye, Kilwarlin 
 and Killultagh. This impulsive and unreliable chief had 
 succeeded his brother Hugh when the latter had been killed 
 by the Scots in 1555. He had been a prisoner in Dublin Castle 
 at the time of Smith's and Essex's invasions, and, indeed, 
 the knowledge of this fact had, to a large extent, been respon- 
 sible for the promotion of the whole enterprise, for the lands 
 of Con McNeil Oge were those principally affected. During 
 Con's imprisonment Sir Brian McPhelim and Brian Feartagh 
 
 d exercised a divided lordship over his territories, and both 
 * Carew MSS., 1594-139. f Carew > ISS - Oct - 1586 - t Ibid -
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 113 
 
 were accused of having had a hand in the murder of young 
 Tom Smith. 
 
 Essex's plans would probably have matured far more satis- 
 factorily for himself if it had not been for the persistent and 
 malicious hostility of Fitzwilliam. This self-seeking Deputy 
 had been from the first a bitter opponent of Essex's venture, 
 which he foresaw would result in a dimunition of his secret 
 profits. He accordingly out of pure spite, and in the hope 
 that it would add to Essex's embarrassments arranged for 
 the escape of Con McNeil Oge, who once free lost no time 
 in returning to his native haunts, which he reached shortly 
 before the execution of Sir Brian. The moment that chieftain 
 was dead, Con reasserted his rights to the lands he had enjoyed 
 before his imprisonment, and proved no less truculent and 
 obstructive than had his predecessor. Con McNeil Oge was 
 generally reckoned a dangerous character, and probably with 
 justice ; at any rate, we may be quite sure that Fitzwilliam 
 was not entirely ignorant of the reputation enjoyed by the 
 man whom he had so maliciously loosed on his supposed 
 colleague. But though Con's sudden reappearance may have 
 contributed to Essex's embarrassments, and may even have 
 hastened his final abandonment of the whole enterprise, it 
 does not appear that beyond the Carrickfergus exploit 
 already referred to Con was particularly aggressive. Four 
 years later, however, his hostility to foreigners became much 
 more marked, for information came to Tirlough Luineach that 
 Con had formed a plot to massacre all the English in Lecale, 
 Dufferin and the Ards in one day.* This plot Tirlough Luineach 
 communicated to Drury, and as a consequence Con was out- 
 lawed and a price put upon his head, but his capture was not 
 effected until a year later, when he was taken by Brian Fear- 
 tagh, the rival claimant to his estates, and handed over to 
 Captain Piers at Carrickfergus. For five years Con lay in 
 Dublin Castle, but Perrot, in pursuance of his anti-Scotch 
 policy, then liberated him, no doubt for a suitable considera- 
 tion. He died in 1589, almost at the same time as his old 
 enemy, Sorley Boy. Upon his death his estates were settled 
 upon Neil McBrian Feartagh, the son of the man who had 
 betrayed him. Neil proved on the whole a loyal subject, and, 
 on his death, his lands passed to his son Con McNeil. This 
 
 * Tirlough Luineach to Drury, Sept. 1579. 
 
 8
 
 114 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 son was popularly but quite improperly known as Con 
 McNeil Oge, a circumstance which is apt to give rise to con- 
 fusion as between the original Con McNeil Oge, who died 
 in 1589, and the man who, in 1603, laid the foundation-stone 
 of the great Ulster Plantation by disposing of the bulk of his 
 enormous property to two Scotchmen named James Hamilton 
 and Hugh Montgomery. 
 
 Antrim contained the Route, McQuillin's country, or the 
 Moyan, as it was called, the Glynns, North Clandeboye, Carrick- 
 fergus and Magee Island. North Clandeboye had originally 
 been divided between Hugh and Brian, the two sons of Phelim 
 Bacagh, Hugh having the north half and Brian the south, 
 with the River Kellis acting as the boundary between the two.* 
 Upon the death of these brothers, their lands, in the natural 
 course, descended to their sons, Hugh McHugh and Shane 
 McBrian, of whom the last-named was illegitimate, "j" " whereby 
 there do be great wars between them." In 1586, Shane 
 simplified the situation to a certain extent by killing Hugh, 
 but even then he had the younger brother Neil to deal 
 with, and the two kept up a ceaseless feud till 1589, when 
 Fitzwilliam for reasons of his own took sides very definitely 
 with Shane McBrian, and clapped Neil McHugh into Dublin 
 Castle. This left Shane for the time being the undisputed lord 
 of all North Clandeboye, till the inevitable moment when 
 Neil, thirsting for revenge, bought his way out of Dublin 
 Castle, and at once took up the old fight with his cousin. 
 The feud continued with fluctuating results up till the end of 
 the century. Each of the competitors, in turn, wooed and 
 won the support of the Government by ceaselessly accusing 
 the other of every conceivable villainy ; and each, when placed 
 in the position of responsibility, infallibly proved worthy of 
 his own description. 
 
 * Hill's " McDonnells of Antrim." 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202, Part II.- 54.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Quarrel between Loftus and Perrot Its causes Dublin University endow- 
 ment Perrot' s unfortunate remark about the Queen Frivolity of the 
 other charges levelled against him His recall and disgrace Affection of 
 the Irish chiefs for Perrot Prosperity of Ireland Fitzwilliam returns as 
 Deputy His alleged corruption His expedition to the north Rumours 
 of Spaniards at large Fitzwilliam's real motive O'Toole and O'Dogherty 
 Their arrest and imprisonment Suspicious conduct of Fitzwilliam 
 He visits Tirlough Luineach at Lifford Friendliness of the O'Neil His 
 high regard for Perrot His appreciation of Perrot's gift Tirlough Luineach 
 petitions to be created Earl of Omagh His claim for rent against Tyrone 
 Fitzwilliam visits Tyrone at Dungannon His handsome entertainment. 
 
 /"CREATIVE reform is very rarely popular even with those 
 V_x whom it is designed to benefit, nor was Perrot's redistri- 
 bution scheme any exception to the general rule. The majority 
 of those affected were openly antagonistic, and even the palpable 
 gainers grumbled at not gaining more. Far ahead of all other 
 gainers was the Earl of Tyrone, who, from being a landless 
 pensioner on charity, became, by the stroke of a pen, the lord 
 of half Ulster. From this sudden access of greatness Tyrone 
 never recovered. From the moment that he was created a 
 territorial magnate with a revenue independent of the English 
 Treasury, he became a rebel in the bud, scheming without 
 intermission to overthrow the power which had made him. 
 Loftus, who cared little for the interests of anyone except 
 himself, but who suffered from an unquenchable hatred of 
 Perrot, wrote to Burleigh protesting that the new arrangement 
 gave Tyrone all the urraghs from the foot of Slieve Gallion to 
 the Pale, which, in point of fact, it did. 
 
 Perrot and Loftus hated one another very earnestly. For 
 this mutual antipathy there were*various reasons, some substan- 
 tial, and others merely childish. Among other things, Loftus 
 had manoeuvred the escape of Sir John O'Dogherty out of Dublin 
 Castle, in consideration of a consignment of several hogsheads 
 of Lough Foyle salmon.* Perrot, who not unnaturally held 
 the view that if anyone was to get salmon for arranging 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 150-52-2. 
 
 H5 8*
 
 116 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 O'Dogherty's escape it should be himself, had a heated inter- 
 view with the Chancellor over the matter, and blows were 
 very nearly exchanged. Loftus never forgave Perrot for finding 
 him out, and thenceforward systematically opposed every 
 proposition that the Deputy put before the Council. On one 
 occasion his demeanour was so offensive that Perrot struck 
 him in the face. Poor Perrot, who suffered severely from stone 
 and was in constant pain, had not the sweetest of tempers, and 
 on another occasion actually knocked the old Marshal, Sir 
 Nicholas Bagenal, down during a heated altercation.* Methods 
 of argument such as these were naturally unpopular, and Perrot 
 managed to make a number of enemies, who, in the end, com- 
 passed his ruin. 
 
 The climax of the feud between the Deputy and the Chan- 
 cellor came about over the question of the Dublin University 
 endowment. This was a pet scheme of Perrot's, and one which 
 was intrinsically worthy. The trouble arose over the fact that 
 the scheme involved the appropriation of some of the revenues 
 of St. Patrick's church for the purpose of endowing the Uni- 
 versity, and Loftus, who was Archbishop as well as Chancellor, 
 opposed this encroachment upon his special preserves with a 
 heat and bitterness worthy of the Deputy himself. Unfortu- 
 nately for Perrot and the success of his scheme, Loftus happened 
 to be a great personal friend of Burleigh, and he prevailed 
 upon the Lord Treasurer to get the Queen to put her veto on the 
 proposed transaction. When the irascible Deputy learnt of 
 this checkmate to his long-cherished scheme, he let fall a hasty 
 remark about Her Majesty's sacred person which was certainly 
 not pretty, J 1 and which Loftus took good care should find its 
 way back to the ears of Elizabeth. From that moment Perrot's 
 doom was sealed. Elizabeth never forgave a personal slight. 
 She had too much vanity to let an affront to her person be put 
 forward as the main charge against one of her Ministers, but 
 there can be no doubt that this unfortunate remark, and nothing 
 else, brought about Perrot's downfall.J He was recalled in 
 
 * Carew MSS. Bagenal to Leicester, May, 1587. Cal. State Papers, Vol. 
 129-84 and 93. 
 
 t " Hibernia Anglicana." See also Cal. State Papers, Vol. 161-19. The 
 man who actually laid the information as to Perrot's unfortunate speech was 
 his secretary, Philip Williams. 
 
 J Perrot's downfall was to a great extent assisted by the bitter hostility of 
 Sir Christopher Hatton, at the time in high favour with the Queen. See 
 Harleian Miscellany II., p. 96.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 117 
 
 disgrace, and, on arrival in London in June, 1588, was lodged 
 in the Tower on charges which were so ludicrously insufficient 
 in themselves that in some cases they fell little short of testi- 
 monials of efficiency, but behind which was the outraged dignity 
 of the offended Queen. The formal indictment was : " that 
 he was severe and forced the people to the oath of allegiance, 
 and pryed into men's patents, and endeavoured to promote 
 laws against recusants, and to repeal Poynings' Act ; and this 
 impeachment was abetted by the Chancellor (being also Arch- 
 bishop), whom the Deputy had disobliged by endeavouring to 
 appropriate the revenues of St. Patrick's church to the new 
 University, and by carrying himself too magisterially in the 
 Government. With the Chancellor, Sir Henry Bagenal, Sir 
 Geoffrey Fenton and others of the Council sided, so that it grew 
 into a powerful faction by which the Deputy was often thwarted 
 at Council Boards or elsewhere."* 
 
 Unpopular though Perrot may have been with the greedy and 
 corrupt members of his Council, he was astonishingly popular 
 with the Irish chiefs, who flocked to the quay from all parts of 
 Ulster to bid him God-speed. There were congregated Tirlough 
 Luineach, Tyrone, O'Donnell (apparently bearing no ill-will for 
 the kidnapping of his son Hugh Roe), Sir John O'Dogherty, 
 Manus O'Donnell, Egnechan O'Donnell, Con McNeil Oge, Sir 
 Ross McMahon, Sir Cuconnaught Maguire, Sir Hugh Magennis 
 and Sir Oghie O'Hanlon,^" The friendliness of the Irish chiefs 
 was afterwards brought up as evidence of Perrot's corrupt rela- 
 tions with them, and there is every probability that he did accept 
 bribes ; but, having been bribed, he at all events kept faith 
 with those who had bribed him, which is more than can be said 
 of his successor. 
 
 In addition to his subdivision of Ulster, Perrot introduced 
 and passed Acts prohibiting the manufacture of aqua vitce 
 (whisky), " which sets the Irishry amadding and breeds many 
 mischiefs," and for the reinforcement of Statute 28 Henry VIII., 
 which forbade marriages with natives. He also attempted, but 
 failed, to get Poynings' Act (Henry VII.) repealed, which laid 
 down that every Act passed by the Irish Parliament had to be 
 confirmed in England before it became law. All these acts 
 stand to his credit, though the last-named was construed into 
 an offence against the State. 
 
 * " Hibernia Anglicana." f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 144-7.
 
 118 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 On the whole, Perrot who was commonly supposed to be a 
 son of Henry VIII. may be ranked with the very small number 
 of Elizabeth's representatives in Ireland whose records are 
 creditable rather than otherwise. His unpopularity with the 
 Dublin officials is all in his favour. Public morality at the time 
 of his administration had sunk so low that there could be no 
 higher tribute to a Deputy's integrity than the disfavour of 
 his colleagues on the Council. Perrot died in the Tower before 
 the absurd charges on which he was put there could be either 
 proved or disproved. He had left a name in Ireland which, 
 at all events, was respected and admired by the native chiefs, 
 and he left the country itself in a state of unprecedented pros- 
 perity. " This realm," says a report on the state of Ireland at 
 the close of Perrot's administration, " is now in better estate 
 than ever I did know it, being not only peaceable and quiet in 
 every part thereof, but so plentiful in all kinds of provisions that 
 corn is little worth and beef sold at 3 Ibs. for a white groat."* 
 
 We may now take leave of the unfortunate Sir John Perrot 
 and devote our attention to a very much worse man. Perrot 
 may have been corrupt, but he was at all events faithful to those 
 who corrupted him. Sir William Fitzwilliam, his successor, 
 was false both to the Queen who paid him and to the chiefs 
 who bribed him. Much of the unrest, which culminated in 
 Tyrone's rebellion, had its source in the malpractices of this very 
 venal Deputy. Perrot publicly accused him of having made 
 10,000 out of his previous term of office.^ According to one 
 Johnson, an attorney of the Queen's Bench in Ireland, he had 
 paid 1,000 to someone unknown presumably Burleigh for 
 the privilege of going back for the second time to Ireland as 
 Deputy, J which, if true, was a sufficient indication of his inten- 
 tions. His first official act showed a disposition to lose no time 
 in getting back his entrance fee, if such, indeed, had been paid. 
 He organized an expedition in force to the north in November, 
 1588, i.e., very soon after his arrival, which was wholly un- 
 justified by the tranquil condition of the country as left by 
 Perrot. 
 
 Fitzwilliam was at the time sixty-four years of age, and by 
 his own account so unwieldy of body that he could barely 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VI.-126. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 144-7. 
 J Cal. State Papers, Vol. 197-60,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 119 
 
 stand. Still, he had reasons of his own for being active, though 
 these reasons were by no means those which were furnished to 
 the Queen. The official excuses for an expedition, which was as 
 costly as it was barren of results, were : (1) To persuade 
 O'Donnell to pay his arrears of rent now (including the 400 
 beeves he had agreed with Perrot to pay in commutation of his 
 failure to maintain his 200 English soldiers) amounting to 2,000 
 beeves. (2) To settle the land dispute between Tirlough 
 Luineach and Tyrone. Fitzwilliam put forward the further 
 pretext that he was called upon in his capacity as Deputy to 
 destroy certain loose bands of Spaniards, survivors of the 
 Armada, who were patrolling the country and creating a danger 
 to the State.* 
 
 It must be admitted in Fitzwilliam's defence that wild 
 rumours to this effect were in truth being freely circulated at 
 the moment. Thousands of Spaniards were reported to have 
 landed, and to be overawing the country in McSweeny Dogh's 
 district. These thousands eventually resolved themselves 
 into a handful of half-drowned mariners, whom the brothers 
 Hoveden captured and sent up to Dublin. As a matter of fact, 
 all the Spaniards who managed to reach shore from the wrecked 
 Armada were either summarily " executed " by the Govern- 
 ment authorities, or else killed by the country people. A man 
 named McLoughlin McCabe boasted that he himself had killed 
 eighty with his axe as they struggled up one after another out 
 of the sea.f 
 
 In point of fact, derelict Spaniards were not Fitzwilliam's 
 quest, nor did he find any such with the exception of two Spanish 
 and five Dutch boys whom he loyally caused to be executed. J 
 The discreditable truth was that he had been led to believe that 
 fabulous treasure in gold and silver had been secured out of 
 the wrecked ships by the Irish, and secreted in various safe 
 hiding-places ; and his hurry to get to Donegal arose from his 
 anxiety to get this treasure into his hands before those who had 
 the secret of its whereabouts had time to dissipate it.|| He was 
 
 * Fitzwiiliam to Walsingham, Oct. 28th, 1588. 
 
 t Edward Whyte to Stephen Whyte, Sept. 12th, 1588. Carew MSS. 
 \ Bingham to Queen, Dec. 3rd, 1588. 
 
 Capt. Dalvray to Carevr, July 27th, 1589. Bingham to Fitzwilliam, Sept. 
 21st, 1589. 
 
 il Fynes Moryson,
 
 120 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 accompanied on this piratical expedition by Sir Ralph Bingham, 
 Sir Lucas Dillon, Sir George Bourchier, Sir Thomas Le Strange 
 and Sir Geoffrey Fenton. A strong fighting force was also 
 in attendance, to add weight to any arguments he might have 
 to put forward in support of his prescriptive right to the 
 treasure. 
 
 The covetous Deputy first of all made a short tour of the 
 Connaught coast, but, finding nothing there but wreckage, 
 crossed into Donegal by way of Ballyshannon. At Ballyshannon 
 he sent one John Bermingham to Sir Owen O'Toole, the local 
 magnate, with an invitation almost amounting to an order 
 for his attendance under a safe conduct. Sir Owen dutifully 
 obeyed the summons, and from that time on accompanied the 
 expedition. At Donegal O'Donnell met the Deputy,* also in 
 response to a summons, but he was old and feeble, and his further 
 presence was not insisted on. From Donegal Fitzwilliam went 
 north to McSweeny Dogh's country, lying to the west of Fanad, 
 which was the country where the bulk of the fabled treasure 
 was reported to have been landed. None, however, was dis- 
 covered by the Viceregal party, and the disappointed expedi- 
 tion then moved down to Lifford, where Sir John O'Dogherty, 
 of Inishowen, in obedience to a summons, also joined the party. 
 
 The limits of Donegal having now been reached and no 
 treasure discovered, Fitzwilliam's mood underwent a marked 
 change for the worse. The two unfortunate Donegal chiefs, 
 who had come in under a safe conduct, were placed under arrest 
 and from that time on accompanied the expedition as closely- 
 guarded prisoners. O'Dogherty, it will be remembered, had 
 very recently escaped from Dublin Castle with the paid assist- 
 ance of the Archbishop. With regard to the other prisoner, 
 Sir Owen O'Toole, a few words of explanation are necessary. 
 
 Sir Owen O'Toole was more correctly known as Sir John 
 O'Gallagher. His real name was Sir Eoghan McTuahal 
 O'Gallagher, which may be correctly anglicized into Sir Owen 
 McToole, but by no means into Sir Owen O'Toole. However, 
 it will be convenient to refer to him by the name by which he 
 was generally known. At the time of Fitzwilliam's visit he was 
 in receipt of a pension of 100 a year from the Government. 
 He was a great favourite with Ineenduv and a strong supporter 
 of the Scotch faction in Donegal ; in fact, he and Ineenduv may 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 139-25.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 121 
 
 be said to have run the Government of Donegal between them, 
 O'Donnell himself being weak and silly. Owen O'Toole, by the 
 way, had married the Earl of Tyrone's mother, Joan Maguire. 
 She was a daughter of old Sir Cuconnaught and was also the 
 mother of Cormac McBaron. Art McBaron was illegitimate. 
 After the murder of Ferdoragh she had married Henry McPhelim 
 Roe (O'Neil) and by him had Tirlough McHenry of the Fews. 
 Then her second husband died and she married Owen O'Toole. 
 She ultimately died herself in December, 1600.* 
 
 It was afterwards asserted and possibly with truth by 
 Hugh Roe O'Donnell, that O'Dogherty and O'Toole had come 
 in of their own accord to the Deputy, and willingly accompanied 
 him as long as he was within the boundaries of Donegal ; but 
 that they had extracted from him a promise that he would not 
 take them beyond the limits of their own country. No sooner, 
 however, had Fitzwilliam got these two unfortunate men safely 
 under guard, than he began to try and force from them the 
 secret of the supposed hidden treasure. This they were 
 naturally unable to give him, for the very good reason that the 
 whole story was apocryphal. Fitzwilliam, however, obstinately 
 refused to believe this, and, in direct violation of his pledge, 
 carried both the men off to Dublin. "j" O'Dogherty though he 
 had no Spanish treasure to bribe with had other resources, 
 and after two years' confinement he bought his release, possibly 
 with more Lough Foyle salmon. O'Toole presumably had 
 nothing to bribe with, for he, poor man, was kept a prisoner for 
 six years. J Russell, when he succeeded, released him out of 
 pity, but he was then an old and broken man, and died shortly 
 afterwards. 
 
 Fitzwilliam, who had always a plausible story ready for every 
 occasion, wrote to Walsingham that the two chiefs had willingly 
 consented to accompany him to Dublin, as pledges for the pay- 
 ment of 2,000 beeves, which were owing to Her Majesty by 
 O'Donnell ; but both Fynes Moryson and the Four Masters 
 agree in ridiculing this story, and Hugh Roe O'Donnell's evi- 
 dence before the Dundalk Commission in 1596 bears out their 
 view, which was that both men were seized and imprisoned in 
 violation of Fitzwilliam's pledged word. 
 
 With his two Donegal prisoners still under custody, Fitz- 
 
 * Four Masters. t JWd- Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VI.-120. 
 
 J Carew MSS. 1594-137.
 
 122 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 william moved down to the River Mourne on a friendly visit to 
 Tirlough Luineach. This easy-going and lethargic chieftain 
 was at the time living in a new stone house optimistically 
 styled a Castle built on the Lifford side of the river, which 
 he had occupied since O'Donnell burned his Strabane Castle 
 after the battle of Drumleen. The house had been originally 
 built by Hugh Gallagher, in the days when he aspired to be the 
 O'Donnell, and was shared between him and Tirlough Luineach 
 till the death of the former in 1589. Here he now received the 
 Deputy and staff with every demonstration of friendliness. 
 The well-stocked cellar was liberally drawn upon, and, after 
 the O'Neil had provided such entertainment as the place afforded, 
 the two parted in apparent friendliness. 
 
 Tirlough Luineach's friendliness towards Fitzwilliam seems 
 to have been genuine, and to have been honestly reciprocated by 
 Fitzwilliam, but Perrot was the Deputy who was most deeply 
 enshrined in the old O'Neil's heart. The late Deputy, shortly 
 after Fitzwilliam's treasure-hunting visit, sent him a steel 
 head-piece by the hand of one John Garland, who relates that 
 Tirlough Luineach " took it in his hand and kissed it at least 
 half a score times, and then presently he sent for two hogsheads 
 [sic] of wine and christened your skull [head-piece], and after 
 he had drunk his fill he put on his shirt of mail and his jack, 
 and called for a bowl of wine and drank it to your honour's 
 health ; and withal he put on the skull and drew out his sword 
 with a great oath, and said that Sir John Perrot was the truest 
 man of his word that ever he knew, and he would prove it upon 
 any man that would say the contrary, old as he was, and then 
 sat down and said, ' I am now ten years younger by reason of 
 that skull.' "* 
 
 Apparently no one took up Tirlough Luineach's challenge, 
 and the proceedings terminated peacefully. On the occasion of 
 Fitzwilliam's visit, Tirlough Luineach was less combative and 
 in all probability more business-like, for he had two definite 
 petitions to lay before the Deputy. One of these was that he 
 should be created Earl of Omagh,| and the other that pressure 
 should be brought to bear on Tyrone to make him pay the rent 
 owed for the lands he leased from Tirlough Luineach, as to 
 which the lessee was now three years in arrear. Tirlough 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 146-40. 
 
 t Cal, State Papers, Vol. 129-59. See also Vol. 130-28.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 123 
 
 Luineach pleaded that Tyrone should either be forced to pay 
 or to give up the lands. Fitzwilliam was full of sympathy and 
 of promises, but he was a man who did nothing for nothing, and 
 after parting with the O'Neil he went on to Dungannon to 
 see whether Tyrone could offer him substantial arguments 
 against the justice of Tirlough Luineach's claim. 
 
 Tyrone was a finished courtier and a man of the world. 
 Fynes Moryson describes him as " of a high dissembling subtlety 
 and of a profound wit." He moreover had the advantage of 
 having been reared in two of the best houses in England, and 
 he knew exactly how things should be done. Fitzwilliam, who 
 was a lover of good things, wrote to Walsingham in high praise 
 of the entertainment provided for them at Dungannon. No- 
 thing was wanting, he said, and both food and wine were of 
 the best.* The entire party left Dungannon fully convinced 
 that Tyrone was one of the best of fellows, and the most loyal 
 subject in Ulster. Sir Geoffrey Fenton and Sir Lucas Dillon 
 were especially warm in his praise. Burleigh wrote to the latter 
 asking for his candid opinion of a man who, even at this early 
 stage, was beginning to be something of an enigma to statesmen 
 in England. Dillon replied with enthusiasm that Tyrone was 
 " greatly followed and valiant, and, by reason of his bringing 
 up and training, of far better disposition, more tractable and 
 politic than any of his ancestors." 
 
 In all the circumstances it is not surprising that poor Tirlough 
 Luineach's claims should have been rather neglected. The 
 Deputy, it is true, wrote to him that Tyrone had agreed to pay 
 up the 3,000 marks arrears of rent, and Tyrone himself subse- 
 quently claimed to have made such a payment, but there is no 
 evidence to bear out this statement, and the events that shortly 
 followed point very strongly in the opposite direction. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 139-25.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Elizabeth's displeasure at Fitzwilliam's expedition Hugh McShane arrives 
 in Ulster from Scotland His interview with Capt. Merriman He goes 
 up to Dublin and lays information against Tyrone Scepticism of Fitz- 
 william Tyrone is sent for His explanations and their acceptance 
 Hugh McShane' s return to the north His betrayal by Shane Maguire 
 Tyrone's conditions for his release Execution of Hugh McShane Tyrone 
 is again sent for to Dublin He is dismissed with a caution Tirlough 
 Luineach's indignation at Hugh's execution He sends Con McShane to 
 England Con is waylaid and seized by Fitzwilliam He is handed over 
 to Tyrone Tyrone's repudiation of his rent His mean nature His 
 enormous income Tyrone burns Dunalong He attacks Strabane with 
 a thousand men His poor generalship Timidity of Hugh Gallagher 
 Capt. Mostyn takes the lead Defeat of Tyrone His hurried flight. 
 
 IT is to be doubted whether Fitzwilliam returned from his 
 northern tour thoroughly satisfied with its results, for none 
 of the Armada treasure had so far materialized ; and, though 
 he had doubtless made some satisfactory arrangement with 
 Tyrone over the matter of Tirlough Luineach's claim for rent, 
 this can have been but a very poor substitute for the other. 
 The Queen as may easily be imagined was very far from 
 pleased, for the expedition had cost her a great deal of money 
 and had accomplished nothing of any material value to her 
 revenue or interests generally. While she was still in this very 
 dissatisfied mood, an incident occurred which seemed to shake 
 to their very foundations all the glowing reports forwarded by 
 Fitzwilliam and Dillon as to the Earl's civilized and tractable 
 nature. 
 
 It will be remembered that, in August, 1584, Hugh and Art 
 McShane had landed in Lough Swilly with a party of Macleans, 
 who after a certain amount of local filibustering had re- 
 embarked for Scotland on the approach of two of Her Majesty's 
 ships. Hugh and Art, however, had remained behind, and a year 
 later Perrot had succeeded in capturing Art,* who was safely 
 lodged in Dublin Castle. Hugh, who had no wish to join his 
 two brothers in the Castle, and who was fully alive to Perrot 's 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, 126-43. Perrot to Walsingham, Feb. 26th, 1586. 
 
 124
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 125 
 
 hostile attitude towards the Scots, upon learning of this catas- 
 trophe, went back to Scotland. Here he stayed during the 
 remainder of Perrot's administration, completing arrangements 
 for bringing over an army, when opportunity might offer, to 
 co-operate with Tirlough Luineach. Perrot, who was perfectly 
 well aware of his intentions, sent him an ultimatum to the effect 
 that, if he brought over any such army during his administra- 
 tion, it would be interpreted as an act of hostility on the part of 
 Tirlough Luineach, and this ultimatum Hugh had respected. 
 Perrot, however, had now gone back in disgrace to England, and 
 a man who viewed all political matters with very different eyes 
 was in his place. 
 
 On learning of the change of Deputies, Hugh McShane's 
 ambitious schemes once more revived, and in February, 1589, 
 he landed in Lough Swilly, not with the army of 2,000 that he 
 was reputed to have raised, but merely for purposes of prelimi- 
 nary consultation with Tirlough Luineach. This chief had in 
 1584 in reluctant response to pressure from Perrot once more 
 nominated Tyrone as his tanist, but this forced arrangement had 
 not survived Tyrone's repudiation of the head-rent he owed 
 the O'Neil for occupying and rack-renting the best half of his 
 territory. The breach between the two branches of the O'Neil 
 family was, in fact, wider now than ever, and, when Tyrone 
 made it quite clear that his intention was absolutely to repudiate 
 the arrangement for rent which he himself had proposed, Tir- 
 lough Luineach, for the second time, disinherited him and sub- 
 stituted in his place one of the sons of Shane. This time the 
 son selected was Hugh, possibly the most efficient and eligible 
 of the family in all respects. 
 
 Hugh's first act after landing was to interview Captain 
 Merriman, the Sheriff of the County. Merriman was very favour- 
 ably impressed, both by the personality of the young man, and 
 by the good and loyal intentions that he professed. As a result 
 of the interview, he wrote to the Deputy that Hugh had some 
 startling revelations to communicate to his secret ear, if he 
 might be guaranteed a safe conduct to Dublin. Fitzwilliam, who 
 scented intrigue and opportunities for personal plunder, was 
 interested and gave the required guarantee, and Hugh went up 
 to Dublin. His information was to the effect that Tyrone had 
 for some time past been in constant communication with both 
 Rome and Spain, with a view to organizing a comprehensive
 
 126 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 rebellion on religious lines in which the whole of Ulster, if not 
 the whole of Ireland, was to take part. 
 
 It was, of course, sufficiently obvious to Fitzwilliam as it 
 is to us to-day that Hugh's disclosures were not actuated by 
 love of the Queen, or loyalty to the Government, but by the 
 simple desire to discredit Tyrone, and to divert the support of 
 the Government from the Earl to himself. In Fitz William's eyes 
 the point of main importance was that Tyrone was the man in 
 possession, or at any rate in half-possession, and that Tyrone 
 was therefore the man who could afford to pay in order to remain 
 in possession. He accordingly threw ridicule on Hugh's story, 
 which he denounced as a spiteful attempt to malign the good 
 Earl.* However, for the sake of appearances, the latter was 
 summoned up to Dublin to make his explanations, which, 
 it is scarcely necessary to say, he succeeded in doing to the com- 
 plete satisfaction of the Deputy. He assured him of his undying 
 loyalty to the Queen, reminded him of the notorious villainies 
 of the late Shane O'Neil, and gave it as his honest opinion that 
 the sons were worse than the father. In support of this latter 
 opinion he cited a case which had recently occurred in his 
 own country where Con McShane had raided him and indiscrimi- 
 nately killed men, women and children. 
 
 Fitzwilliam lent a sympathetic ear, agreed that Shane's 
 sons were untrustworthy villains, and finally dismissed the 
 injured Earl with conciliatory pats on the back, and admonitions 
 to studiously tread the narrow path of loyalty and virtue. 
 
 Captain Merriman, who was one of the bravest and most 
 honest men in Ireland, was much more impressed by Hugh 
 McShane's story than was the Deputy ; in fact, when he heard 
 that the latter had made light of it, he even felt called upon to 
 write to Walsingham informing him of the favourable im- 
 pression that Hugh had made upon him, and adding his opinion 
 that, " if O'Neil were gone, Tyrone would prove as bad a member 
 as ever came of his name. ""I" Such a warning coming from such 
 a humble source would have had little weight had it not been 
 startlingly endorsed by the events which immediately followed. 
 
 Hugh McShane, after his interview with Fitzwilliam, made 
 
 his way back as quickly as might be though by a circuitous 
 
 road, in order to avoid Tyrone's country towards Strabane, 
 
 breaking his journey at various convenient points. One of these 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 144-38. f Ca l- St at Papers, Vol. 148-9.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 127 
 
 was at Belleek in Fermanagh, where he sought the hospitality 
 of Shane Maguire, who had been a friend of his in days gone by. 
 Maguire, however, was now less friendly, and, discerning an 
 opportunity for profit in the situation, he sent to Tyrone asking 
 what he would offer for his guest. Tyrone replied that he would 
 give twenty horses, which Maguire considered satisfactory, and 
 the bargain was closed.* In some accounts of the affair it is 
 suggested that Tyrone sent across a party who apprehended 
 Hugh, but this is unlikely, in view of the extreme rapidity with 
 which the whole transaction had to be carried through. The 
 more correct version is undoubtedly that given in the " Annals 
 of Lough Ce," which is as follows : " Hugh was taken by Shane 
 Maguire in treachery in the house of a horseman of Maguire's 
 people, for which the Earl gave him twenty horses." 
 
 Tyrone now had two of Shane's sons (Brian being already 
 his prisoner), and he wrote to Tirlough Luineach suggesting that 
 one of the three brothers, Hugh, Brian, or Con (who, for reasons 
 which are not known, had been released by Tyrone a couple 
 of months before and was now once more with Tirlough Luin- 
 each),']' sh 011 ^ always remain at Dungannon as a pledge for the 
 good conduct of the other two. On these terms he said he was 
 prepared to liberate either Hugh or Brian. Hugh, as may be 
 supposed, was quite ready to fall in with the arrangement, 
 but Con who was the only one of the three concerned at large 
 took a very different view. He made a journey to Dungannon 
 to discuss the proposition with Tyrone (and presumably with his 
 two brothers), and was then given a fortnight in which to talk 
 the matter over with Tirlough Luineach and come to some 
 decision. What Tirlough Luineach's view of the matter may 
 have been is not on record, but it is quite certain that Con was 
 not converted to the idea of sacrificing his own liberty in order 
 to release his brother, for the fourteen days were allowed to 
 lapse, and on the fourteenth day Hugh was hanged on a 
 convenient thorn tree. 
 
 Tyrone was accused in many quarters of having done the hang- 
 ing with his own hands, but this he stoutly denied, and probably 
 with truth. J That he was hard put to it to find a hangman is 
 beyond doubt, for the Donnelly sept, who had been Shane's 
 foster-brothers, did their best to make the execution an im- 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 150-71. f Cal - State Papers, Vol. 141-22. 
 
 I Cal. State Papers, Vol. 151-20.
 
 128 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 possibility by forbidding any man to have a hand in the hanging 
 of the late O'Neil's son. In the end, however, Tyrone found two 
 Meath men, named Naughten and Cormac McMurphy, who acted 
 as manual assistants to his brother Cormac, who was the chief 
 executioner.* Tyrone himself looked on. As a result of this 
 act, the Donnelly sept seceded in a body from the Earl, and 
 thenceforward their far from contemptible influence was on the 
 side of Tirlough Luineach. 
 
 A high-handed proceeding such as the hanging of a man 
 who had just laid important information before the Govern- 
 ment, could hardly be overlooked even by such an opportunist 
 as Fitzwilliam, and the Earl was summoned before the Privy 
 Council to give an explanation of his action. His defence was 
 curiously crude for a man of his imaginative powers. Hugh, 
 he said, was a traitor and the son of a traitor ; he had frequently 
 raided his country, and had been guilty of many notable 
 murders. " Many women and infants," he declared, " had 
 by him been murdered, besides many that with great wounds 
 had escaped his fury."f All this may have been tru~, but most 
 probably was not, for Hugh had been for several years in 
 Scotland, debarred by a stretch of sea from making raids on 
 central Ulster, even if he had wished to. The fact was, of 
 course, that Hugh's personal character, good, bad or indifferent, 
 had nothing whatever to do with his untimely end. The man 
 was a standing menace to Tyrone, both on account of the 
 special knowledge he possessed of the Earl's political designs, 
 and also because of all Shane's sons he was the most likely 
 to successfully compete with Tyrone for the succession. 
 
 Tyrone was mildly censured by the Privy Council ; he was 
 bound in his own recognisances to reappear when called upon, 
 and so sent home. It is probable that the incident would have 
 been definitely closed then and there but for the persistence of 
 Tirlough Luineach. The old O'Neil was greatly outraged by 
 the whole proceeding, and he had no idea of accepting as 
 final the exculpation of the time-serving Privy Council. Con 
 McShane was sent off, in the capacity of a special envoy, to 
 lay the whole chain of events before Burleigh, with a view to 
 having Tyrone arraigned before a properly constituted Court. 
 Fitzwilliam, however, was duly warned of this intended move 
 probably by Tyrone and he managed to waylay and capture 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 151-20. f Ibid.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 129 
 
 Con as he was making his way through Dublin. The moment 
 Con was in his power, Fitzwilliam removed any doubts that 
 might previously have existed as to his leanings in the matter, 
 by handing his prisoner over to the man who had just hanged 
 his brother. Tyrone did not hang Con, though he had cer- 
 tainly more justification for doing so than had been apparent 
 in the case of Hugh, for Con had been guilty of many cruelties 
 to the Earl's people. Moreover, the moment Hugh was dead, 
 Tirlough Luineach had made Con his tanist, at the same time 
 formally discarding and disinheriting his own illegitimate son 
 Art, with whom he had never been on the best of terms.* 
 It can only be supposed that Tyrone feared the uproar that 
 would most certainly have arisen had he hanged Con after 
 the solemn jobation to which he had been treated by the 
 Privy Council, for he contented himself with putting him in 
 prison alongside of his brother Brian. A year later he was 
 destined to add Henry to the collection of brothers, after 
 which his prisoners were separated, Brian being kept at Dun- 
 gannon, while Henry and Con were confined in separate islands 
 in Leinster. 
 
 Elated by the so-far favourable course of events, Tyrone 
 now determined to read the O'Neil a lesson for his audacity 
 in asking for the payment of arrears of rent, and, in so doing, 
 he established a Hibernian precedent which has successfully 
 survived the centuries. The Earl had now enjoyed the best 
 half of O'Neil' s lands for six years without paying one penny 
 of the absurdly inadequate rent which he had agreed to under 
 Perrot's scheme. "j" The lands out of which Tyrone had tricked 
 his late father-in-law, and in respect of which he had steadily 
 refused to pay the agreed rent, had for him something more 
 than an agricultural value. It is true that he was able to squeeze 
 enormous rents out of the serfs that the arrangement placed 
 at his mercy, J but, in addition to money, the lands conferred 
 upon their overlord the terrorizing power which in Ireland 
 always exacts reverence. He had absolute rule of life and 
 limb, torture and mutilation, over the men, women, and children 
 of the lands he rented. Such powers were looked upon as the 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 148-7. 
 t Tirlough Luineach to Queen, March 31st, 1590. 
 
 J Moiintjoy estimated that Tyrone's income, when O'Neil, amounted to over 
 80,000 a year. 
 
 9
 
 130 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 hall-marks of royalty, and, in the popular estimation, installed 
 any such as exercised them in the outer ranks of the gods. 
 Except for the acquisition of these lands, and for the territorial 
 despotism which their possession conferred, Tyrone on the 
 death of Tirlough Luineach would have entered the list of 
 candidates for the succession on equal terms with Tirlough 
 Luineach's sons, Shane's sons, and Tirlough Braselagh's sons. 
 As it was, however, his election was a foregone conclusion, for 
 he started as the acknowledged lord of half the lands associated 
 with the title of O'Neil. Considering, then, the immense 
 advantage, both moral and material, that he derived from the 
 friendly arrangement entered into with Tirlough Luineach, 
 his repudiation of the small rent agreed upon argues in the 
 Earl a singularly mean and niggardly mind. 
 
 Apart from the question of rent, there may have been some 
 reasonable justification according to the standard of the day 
 for Tyrone's attack on Tirlough Luineach. The Earl was 
 constantly accusing Shane's sons acting for Tirlough Luineach 
 of raiding his country and massacring his people, and for these 
 accusations there were probably some grounds. Tirlough 
 Luineach had been defrauded of his rent, and, according to 
 the custom of the country, his indignation would find its natural 
 expression in bloody raids upon Tyrone's people. There is no 
 evidence of Tyrone having so far retaliated. Now, however, 
 he determined that it was time to act. He started his campaign 
 with a surprise attack on Dunalong Castle, which he had the 
 satisfaction of burning, Tirlough Luineach being away in his 
 Lifford house at the time. Having given this preliminary 
 indication of his mood, Tyrone then returned to Dungannon, 
 and there made preparations for an excursion on a far more 
 important scale against Lifford and Strabane. By the middle 
 of April, 1589, his preparations were complete. He had mus- 
 tered 1,000 armed men, at the head of which he set out from 
 Dungannon and marched west, devastating the country as he 
 went, the moment he had crossed his own boundary line. He 
 crossed the Mourne below Omagh and followed the left bank 
 of the river down to Newtown. Here Hugh Gallagher, who was 
 in command of Tirlough Luineach's forces, had taken up a 
 defensive position of considerable strength, but, on learning 
 of Tyrone's numbers, he prudently withdrew towards Lifford. 
 Tyrone followed till he had wedged Gallagher in between the
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 151 
 
 Mourne and Finn, and then he too became the victim of over- 
 prudence. He had arranged with O'Donnell that his eldest 
 son Donnell should arrive at Lifford simultaneously with him- 
 self, and that the two forces should then unite and overwhelm 
 Tirlough Luineach's small defensive army. Donnell had not 
 yet arrived, and, although Tyrone's forces greatly outnumbered 
 Gallagher's, he determined that it would be safer to await the 
 arrival of the Donegal reinforcements before attacking. Accord- 
 ingly on the night of April 30th he encamped on Carricklea 
 Hill facing Lifford, keeping a sharp look-out to the west for the 
 approach of his dilatory ally. 
 
 Now it so fell out that, by a piece of strangely happy fortune 
 for Tirlough Luineach, there were at the moment at Lifford 
 two companies of English soldiers commanded by Captain 
 Mostyn,* who had lately been appointed Sheriff of Donegal 
 in place of Captain Merriman, but who had been turned out 
 by O'Donnell, and had taken temporary refuge with Tirlough 
 Luineach. Mostyn pointed out to Gallagher how suicidal 
 it would be for the weaker side numerically to wait till 
 O'Donnell's force came up, and urged an immediate attack 
 on the hill. Gallagher, however, had no liking for the scheme, 
 and declared with considerable emphasis that nothing would 
 induce him to attack at night,| but he agreed that an attack 
 might reasonably be attempted in the morning. He, not 
 unwillingly, resigned the leadership to Mostyn, who had the 
 whole-hearted co-operation of Tirlough Luineach. The old 
 chief had not taken the field for some years, but, though now 
 nearly sixty years of age, he gallantly arrayed himself in mail 
 shirt, with Perrot's steel skull upon his head, and placed himself 
 alongside of Mostyn. 
 
 At the first streak of dawn the English captain and the 
 Irish chief, supported by Hugh Gallagher, Tirlough Luineach's 
 son Art, and Con McCalvagh's son Neil Garv, led the assault. 
 The attacking party only numbered 400, of whom nearly half 
 were English, while Tyrone had 1,000 men very strongly posted, 
 but none the less the issue was never for a moment in doubt. 
 Before Mostyn and the old O'Neil had come within striking 
 distance, Tyrone's men broke and fled in all directions, headed 
 by the Earl himself, who " made away and rested not till 
 he came to Dungannon." Great numbers were slain in the 
 * " Hibernia Anglicana." f Four Masters. 
 
 9*
 
 132 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 pursuit which followed, Tirlough Luineach's son Art according 
 to local panegyrists himself killing 300 of the fugitives.* 
 In the scrimmage old Tirlough Luineach received a bullet-wound 
 in the shoulder and a lance-wound in the small of the back, 
 and much commiseration from the Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam, 
 who sent him up a surgeon and " much dressing for his wounds. "*f* 
 This was Hugh Gallagher's last appearance in public, for 
 three months later Ineenduv always thirsting to be revenged 
 on him for the kidnapping of her beloved Hugh Roe, and the 
 slaughter of her cousin Alexander inveigled him under false 
 pretences to her house at Mongavlin, where he was waylaid 
 and murdered. 
 
 * Four Masters. f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 158 47
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The revolt of Cavan, Monaghan and Fermanagh Its causes real and alleged 
 Tyrone's part in the affair Monaghan and the McMahons Sir Ross's 
 complaints in the matter of a sheriff Death of Sir Ross Dispute over 
 the succession Hugh Roe McMahon He is supported by Fitzwilliam 
 He abuses the power given him Arrest of Hugh Roe McMahon His trial 
 and execution Tyrone takes political advantage of the occurrence His 
 representation of the matter He alarms the northern chiefs Fitz- 
 william's greed New divisions of Monaghan Severe English criticism of 
 Fitz William's action He denies the charges made against him Ever 
 McCooley's evidence. 
 
 FOR fifty years Cavan, Monaghan and Fermanagh had 
 been the model districts of Ulster, a fact due partly to 
 self-interest, and partly to their proximity to the Pale. But, 
 by a strange decree of fate, it was now ordained that these 
 three counties were to be the prime movers in a rebellion which 
 was to last ten years, and which was to exercise the most 
 momentous and far-reaching effects upon the destinies of 
 Ulster. The circumstances which turned these three good 
 counties into bad counties occasioned at the time a very memor- 
 able stir. 
 
 A certain amount of obscurity must always surround the 
 actual part which Tyrone played in the earlier stages of the 
 rebellion known as Maguire's. According to the information 
 laid by Hugh McShane, Tyrone had for some time past been 
 planning a rebellion on a comprehensive scale, which was to 
 take the form of a religious movement, and which was to have 
 the active co-operation of Spain and the Vatican. On the 
 other hand there are certain specific occurrences connected 
 with Fitzwilliam's administration which all the Ulster chiefs 
 subsequently pointed to as the first causes of the rebellion. 
 The point in obscurity is as to whether these occurrences would, 
 under normal conditions, have been in themselves a sufficient 
 cause for rebellion, or whether they were merely seized upon 
 by Tyrone as the public justification for a course which he 
 had long been planning in secret. The latter theory is more 
 
 133
 
 134 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 in line with the known facts. It must also be remembered that 
 the traditional loyalty of Monaghan and Fermanagh, the 
 first two counties to rebel, had been severely shaken by Perrot's 
 sacrifice of their independence to Tyrone's growing ambition. 
 All the blame for this, as may be supposed, was thrown by the 
 chiefs and the people of Monaghan and Fermanagh on Perrot 
 and his Government, and none on Tyrone,* who was the chief 
 gainer thereby and the instigator of the act. With the two 
 counties in this discontented mood, came the execution of 
 Hugh Roe McMahon, and Tyrone's intriguing mind instantly 
 recognized in the opportune event the required spur with 
 which to goad McMahon and Maguire into line with his long- 
 cherished schemes. 
 
 This much is quite clear, but it is by no means equally 
 clear that Hugh Roe's execution would have aroused more than 
 a very passing interest except for the untiring energy of Tyrone's 
 secret agents. 
 
 The bald facts of the case are as follows : Sir Ross McMahon 
 had for some time past been one of the pattern chiefs of Ulster, 
 and as an example to all others he surrendered his lands 
 to the Queen, and received them again from her, with direct 
 succession to his heirs male, or failing these to his brother 
 Hugh Roe. This was all in strict conformity with the English 
 law of primogeniture. It was an invariable part of any such 
 arrangement that a sheriff should be appointed to represent 
 the dignity of the Government in the county. McMahon, 
 however, bribed Fitzwilliam in a considerable sum not to 
 burden him with this undesirable appendage. Fitzwilliam took 
 the bribe, but nevertheless put the sheriff upon him.*j- This 
 breach of faith so exasperated Sir Ross that he made an attack 
 upon the sheriff (Captain Willis), killed several of his men, 
 and would have killed Willis himself but for the intervention 
 of the Earl of Tyrone. Sir Ross followed up the above armed 
 protest by issuing a proclamation to the effect that there was 
 to be no tillage in his country for the next three years, and 
 having in this way defied his late friend the Government- died 
 decently in his bed in June, 1589. J Hugh Roe at once put in 
 his claim to be appointed his successor, and, in furtherance of 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 132-48. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VI.-126. 
 
 J Fitzwilliam to Burleigh, March 81st, 1589.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 135 
 
 his claim, went up personally to Dublin, three weeks after 
 his brother's death, to give any such undertakings and guarantees 
 as the Government might require from him in return for their 
 support. Prompt action was indeed rendered necessary by 
 the irregular conduct of one Brian McHugh Oge,* who, with a 
 backing of 600 hired Scots, defied Elizabeth and all her edicts, 
 and forcibly seized upon the county. In this emergency it 
 was very clearly the duty of the Deputy to give Hugh Roe 
 his undivided support. The senior surviving brother of the 
 late McMahon| was obviously the legitimate heir according 
 to the English custom of primogeniture, which it was Elizabeth's 
 aim to establish in Ireland. He had also been specifically 
 named by Elizabeth during his brother's lifetime as the heir, 
 in the event of Sir Ross dying childless. Fitzwilliam's habitual 
 cupidity, however, so overcame his sense of right that he 
 declined to give Hugh Roe the Government support till he had 
 undertaken to pay him 600 beeves. As soon as that arrange- 
 ment was agreed to, Fitzwilliam gave him 400 foot and 40 horse 
 with which to turn out the usurper. J 
 
 After being placed in command of his Uttle army, Hugh 
 Roe's conduct it must be confessed did not come up to 
 expectations. He had a private grievance against Ever 
 McCooley of Farney on account of some matter of rent supposed 
 to be due, and, as Ever had no armed following and Brian 
 McHugh had 600 Scots, an expedition against the former seemed 
 to have attractions which the other alternative lacked. He 
 accordingly invaded Farney with his 440 soldiers, killed two of 
 Ever McCooley 's brothers and a number of women and children, 
 and, after capturing Ever in his house at Lisanisk, kept him a 
 prisoner till he had paid the rent demanded. In the mean- 
 while, Brian McHugh Oge, being unopposed by any organized 
 armed force, continued his triumphant career of devastation 
 by capturing Clones and burning the Abbey. 
 ^Fitzwilliam who saw in this chain of events no promise 
 of his 600 beeves pretended great indignation at the misuse 
 of the Government troops which he had supplied, and he sent 
 the story of Hugh Roe's sins to the Privy Council in England. 
 
 * All the principal Irish in the Monaghan dispute were McMahons, but for 
 the sake of brevity the final name is left out. 
 t The younger brother Brian was in Dublin Castle. 
 J Fynes Moryson Itinerary. 
 Shirley's " History of Farney."
 
 136 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Burleigh recognized the magnitude of the offence, but he wrote 
 back in November, 1589, instructing the Lord Deputy to take 
 no violent measures against Hugh Roe for the time being. 
 This was quite in line with Fitzwilliam's own interests, for he 
 was always living in hopes of getting his cattle ; but when, 
 at the end of nearly two years, he was still without the beasts 
 that he -had bargained for, he lost patience, made a special 
 journey up to Monaghan, arrested Hugh Roe, tried him by 
 summary court-martial on a charge of murder and arson, and 
 hanged him in front of his own house door. 
 
 This arbitrary act provided the alleged pretext for the 
 rebellion of the northern chiefs. On the face of it, the cause 
 appears out of all proportion to the effect in a country where 
 high-handed executions were of painfully common occurrence. 
 Hugh Roe had himself killed two of Ever McCooley's brothers, 
 and quite a number of his people, because Ever McCooley 
 owed him rent. Tyrone had very recently hanged his own 
 cousin Hugh O'Neil on general grounds rather than for any 
 specific offence. By comparison, Fitzwilliam's hanging of Hugh 
 Roe on charges of murder and arson, which were not denied, 
 appeared a defensible act ; and there can be little doubt that 
 it would have attracted no special attention, but for the inter- 
 ference of Tyrone. This crafty chief, however, was, as we are 
 told by Fynes Moryson, "of a profound subtlety," and he 
 cleverly used the incident to the best advantage as a lever 
 with which to work on the personal fears of the Ulster chiefs 
 and sub-chiefs. If he had simply held up the incident as an act 
 of injustice actuated by sordid motives, the chances are that 
 he would have made no impression. Those whom he addressed 
 would have seen nothing wicked or unnatural in an act so in- 
 spired. His methods were surer and far more subtle, and 
 were assisted to a considerable extent by the form which Fitz- 
 william's own explanation took. It was clearly impossible for 
 the Queen's Deputy to say that he had hanged a man because 
 he had failed to pay him the 600 beeves with which he had 
 bought his support. Such a defence might have excited little 
 criticism in Ireland, but it would have excited very severe 
 criticism from Queen Elizabeth in England.* Perrot was 
 in the Tower on lesser charges than these. So Fitzwilliam 
 
 * The true facts of the case did ultimately come out, and were the occasion 
 of Fitzwilliam being brought to trial in England.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 187 
 
 gave forth that Hugh Roe McMahon was hanged for murder 
 and arson. On this justification Tyrone pounced like a cat. 
 What security of life, he argued, could any chieftain boast if 
 he was liable to be hanged by the Government because his 
 followers had chanced to kill a few women and children and to 
 burn a few houses ? That this was his line of argument is 
 made perfectly clear by his own plea of justification put in after 
 he had himself definitely joined the rebellion. In this plea 
 he admitted his inability to control or restrain his own men, and 
 argued from this that he himself might at any time be executed 
 for outrages committed by his followers, which he was power- 
 less to prevent. This cunningly-framed argument at once 
 took hold of the popular imagination. " Hugh Roe McMahon," 
 Tyrone pointed out to the chiefs, " was executed for distraining 
 of his rights according to custom."* It was felt by his uneasy 
 audience that, if this was to form a precedent, every chief in 
 Ulster would henceforward go about with a halter round his 
 neck ; for what Hugh Roe McMahon had done and been 
 hanged for doing they all did. As Fynes Moryson puts it, 
 the capital charge levelled against Hugh Roe " was thought 
 no rare thing nor great offence." The chiefs grew nervous 
 and uneasy. A report was freely circulated that Fitzwilliam's 
 design was to hang the chiefs in detail on some flimsy pretext, 
 as in the case of Hugh Roe, and then to dispose of their lands 
 to his own advantage. 
 
 Unfortunately, a decided tinge of probability was imparted 
 to these gloomy forecasts by Fitzwilliam's own very questionable 
 conduct after the execution in discussion. All sorts of exag- 
 gerated reports were afloat as to the actual financial benefits 
 that accrued to the Deputy over the transaction. These 
 reports had a foundation in fact, but no more. What actually 
 happened was that Fitzwilliam gave out that, as Hugh Roe 
 had been executed for murder, and as Brian McHugh Oge was 
 a proclaimed rebel, no McMahon in chief would be appointed, 
 but the five baronies of Monaghan would be apportioned as 
 follows : Ever McCooley was to hold Farney under the Earl 
 of Essex (to whose father it had been granted in 1575). Brian 
 McHugh Oge (not to be confounded with the rebel of the same 
 name) was to have Dartrey. Patrick McKenna retained the 
 Trough, Monaghan went to Ross Bane and Cremourne to 
 
 * Carew MSS., 1594-137.
 
 108 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Patrick McArt Moyle.* From each of these baronies, however 
 (with the exception of Farney, which he could not touch), 
 Fitzwilliam cut off a handsome slice for himself, which he at 
 once put upon the market and sold, the principal buyers being 
 Sir Henry Bagenal, Captain Henshaw, Baron Elliott, Mr. 
 Solicitor Wilbraham, Parson O'Conellan, Hugh Strowbridge, 
 Thomas Asshe, Christopher Fleming and Captain Willis. The 
 actual sum total that went into the Deputy's pocket over the 
 transaction is not on record, the only known figure being 
 400 which Captain Henshaw paid for his share, j" but the 
 total sum must have been considerable. 
 
 FitzwiHiam's action in the matter of Hugh Roe McMahon 
 aroused much unfavourable comment in England, and even 
 in Irish official circles. Russell, who succeeded Fitzwilliam, 
 pronounced the execution of Hugh Roe to have been " against 
 conscience and justice." So deep a stir did the affair make that, 
 within a year of the occurrence, the English Council had 
 abolished all summary Court-Martials in Ireland, and had 
 substituted in their place a system of periodical Assize Courts. 
 No action was taken against Fitzwilliam himself till his return 
 to England, but he was then formally arraigned on the following 
 charges : " That he caused McMahon to be indicted at a special 
 session, whither he himself rode, and he there caused the man 
 to be hanged because he could not pay him a fee of 800 [sic] 
 beeves. He also appointed a private session where Michael 
 Fitzsimmons was in one day indicted, condemned and judged, 
 and the next day executed, that his farm might be bestowed 
 on the Bishop of Meath."J 
 
 Fitzwilliam was ill at his house at the time the charges were 
 made against him, and he replied in writing. He denied in the 
 first case that the country as alleged had been divided up 
 between himself, Bagenal and Henshaw. The McMahons, he 
 said, had by far the greater part of it. He further claimed to 
 have created 300 new freeholders, whose rents in the aggregate 
 should have brought in 800 a year to Her Majesty. As to 
 his alleged covetousness, he told the Council that Ever McCooley 
 had offered him 7,000 cows to be made McMahon, but he 
 virtuously turned aside from the offer, as he preferred the Queen's 
 
 * Shirley's " History of Farney." 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VI.-126. 
 
 j Cal. State Papers, Vol. 176-19.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 139 
 
 interest to cows. He concluded by the statement that all 
 the country rejoiced at Hugh Roe's death. This last was 
 probably true. It was certainly corroborated by the evidence 
 of Ever McCooley McMahon, whom business of his own, in 
 connection with Farney, took across to England at the time 
 of Fitzwilliam's indictment. Ever's opinion was that Fitz- 
 william was fully justified in executing Hugh Roe McMahon, 
 not only on account of his invasion of Farney, " but for other 
 just causes."* McCooley was, of course, an obviously biased 
 witness, but his evidence seems to have had some weight with 
 the Council in England, and in the end to have been a con- 
 tributing factor to Fitzwilliam's acquittal. For acquitted 
 he was. The evidence bearing on the matter was difficult 
 to arrive at in England, and, when obtained, was hopelessly 
 conflicting. It was also greatly in Fitzwilliam's favour that 
 none of the acts with which he was charged were acts which 
 adversely affected the Queen's pocket or fame. All other 
 offences ranked low by the side of any act or word which 
 disparaged the sacred person of Elizabeth, as poor Perrot had 
 found out to his cost. 
 
 * Shirley's " History of Farney."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Death of Sir Cuconnaught Maguire Connor Roe and Hugh Maguire dispute 
 for the succession Hugh defies the Government His explanations The 
 abuses of the sheriffs General state of corruption in Elizabethan Ireland 
 Causes of the same Tyrone's marriage to Mabel Bagenal His eager- 
 ness for her dowry His ill-treatment of her Her return to Newry and 
 death Hugh Roe O'Donnell's first escape from Dublin Castle His betrayal 
 by Phelim O'Toole His recapture and second escape in 1591 Suspected 
 connivance of Fitzwilliam Garrett Moore's part Death of Maplesden 
 the Governor Russell's suspicions The Queen's suspicions Henry and 
 Art McShane escape with Hugh Roe Death of Art McShane Hugh Roe 
 and Henry McShane reach Dungannon Henry imprisoned by Tyrone 
 Hugh McManus abdicates in favour of Hugh Roe Battle of Glencolumb- 
 kill Death of Donnell O'Donnell Con McGalvagh's nine sons Hugh 
 Roe burns Strabane and raids O'Cahan Tirlough Luineach's helplessness. 
 
 I-N the meanwhile, in the neighbouring county of Fer- 
 managh as ill-fortune would have it the chiefry became 
 vacant very nearly at the same moment as that of Monaghan. 
 Sir Ross McMahon and Sir Cuconnaught Maguire both died 
 in the same year. The rival candidates in Fermanagh were 
 Sir Cuconnaught's two sons, Connor Roe and Hugh. Connor 
 Roe was reputed to be legitimate, but Hugh, who was many 
 years his junior in fact young enough to be his son most 
 certainly was not, being the son of Nuala O'Donnell, now the 
 wife of Neil Garv. Fitzwilliam supported Connor Roe, who 
 was the proper heir according to the law of primogeniture, 
 but Hugh, who was a young man of high spirit and of wide 
 ambitions, cared nothing for the law of primogeniture, and 
 called in the help of his kinsman Donnell O'Donnell to support 
 his claim. Donnell responded with commendable promptitude, 
 and crossed the border with a force which completely over- 
 shadowed anything that Connor Roe could put into the field. 
 In the days when might was right there was no appeal against 
 such an argument, and, at Lisnaskea, Hugh was duly elected 
 the ruling lord of Fermanagh. 
 
 A defiance of the Government authorities such as this was 
 tantamount to an open declaration of rebellion, and Hugh 
 
 140
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 141 
 
 Maguire was duly proclaimed a traitor. He had but a very 
 small armed following of his own, and, when the Donegal men 
 had returned to their own country, and the forces of the Queen 
 were on his trail, he became a hunted fugitive, evading capture 
 in the recesses of O'Rourke's (Leitrim) or O'Donnell's country 
 rather than in his own. 
 
 It is not at first apparent why a man who could no doubt 
 have made a satisfactory composition of some sort with Fitz- 
 william and Connor Roe, should have jeopardized all by an 
 act which brought him neither riches nor power, and which 
 turned him into a hunted outlaw. His own explanation, given 
 seven years later when all the rebel chiefs put down their 
 grievances on paper, was that he had paid Fitzwilliam 300 
 beeves, and Bagenal 150 beeves, to be absolved for one year 
 from the incubus of a sheriff ; and that, " notwithstanding 
 that the Deputy took the bribe, he nevertheless sent Captain 
 Willis in as sheriff with 100 men." This story was probably 
 true, for it is quite in keeping with what we know of Fitz- 
 william ; but, even if we accept it in its entirety, the effect at 
 first sight seems altogether out of proportion to the cause. 
 Why rebel, it may be asked, because of the mere imposition of 
 so respectable and orderly an officer as a sheriff ? The answer 
 is that the sheriffs were, alas, for the most part neither re- 
 spectable nor orderly. They were really supplementary county 
 chiefs who bought from the Government the right to bully, 
 punish, kill and extort in exactly the same way that the native 
 chiefs themselves bullied, punished, killed and extorted. As 
 the appointment of a sheriff meant not only divided authority 
 but divided spoils as well, it is not surprising that there was no 
 form of Government interference which the chiefs viewed with 
 such disfavour. The post was practically put up to auction by 
 the Deputy, and the highest bidder then laid himself out to 
 get back his capital outlay by the shortest cut possible. Hence 
 abuses of all kinds. Elizabeth was fully aware of these abuses, 
 and it is only fair to her memory to say that she did her utmost 
 to put a stop to them, but the combination against her was 
 too strong. When at last she found an honest Deputy in Lord 
 Burgh, she put the matter plainly to him. " I am informed," 
 she wrote, " that there have been many foul abuses by the 
 selling of offices and by making of sheriffs in perpetuity, whose 
 lewdness has been the cause of many revolts in regard to their
 
 142 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 oppressions." The sheriff question formed a prominent feature 
 in the peace negotiations which took place in 1595, and it was 
 one of the concessions made by Tyrone on that occasion that 
 sheriffs should be accepted in the Ulster counties, always 
 provided that they were honest men, " lest," he added in the 
 beautiful language which invariably characterized all his 
 declarations written or spoken, " by their evil dealings we be 
 driven to forget our loyalty in seeking the safety of our lives 
 and goods, as heretofore we have been abused by the over- 
 greedy desire of lucre and ill-dealing of such as have borne 
 office in Ulster." 
 
 It must be remembered in reflecting upon the appalling 
 corruption and rapacity which characterized Elizabethan ad- 
 ministration in Ireland, and which reached its climax under 
 Fitzwilliam, that the better class of English did not find their 
 way to Ireland. Those who did come voluntarily were by 
 no means the pick of the population. " The season why both 
 the Council, Clergy and English inhabitants in this kingdom 
 have been noted of so corrupt a disposition," Mount joy wrote, 
 in his discourse on Irish affairs in 1600, " is because for the 
 most part they are, in all three kinds, such as England rather 
 refuseth." Bankrupts, failures in other walks of life, refugees 
 from justice or from their importunate creditors, needy adven- 
 turers, shady characters of all descriptions for whom England 
 was getting too hot, these gravitated naturally to the sister isle, 
 where report had it that fortunes were to be easily and quickly 
 amassed by such as were not too scrupulous as to the methods 
 to be employed. Those of the better class who found them- 
 selves compelled to cross the Channel, either by force of circum- 
 stances or in obedience to the Queen's orders, were not long in 
 getting infected with the general contagion. From the first 
 moment of their landing in Ireland they found themselves in 
 an atmosphere which literally reeked of corruption, and unless 
 their characters were of cast-iron they speedily learnt to do 
 in Ireland as others did. The sheriffs, for the most part, were 
 mere soldiers of fortune. They had no aim in their vocation 
 except personal gain, and the powers that their official position 
 gave them were chiefly used to this end. As to the sheriffs 
 referred to by Elizabeth who were appointed " in perpetuity," 
 these simply paid an annual head-rent to the Deputy, and then 
 farmed the county to their own advantage. The chiefs, it is
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 148 
 
 true, did exactly the same, with this one very marked difference, 
 that their head-rents were constitutional, and were paid to the 
 Queen, whereas the sheriffs' were illicit, and were paid in secret 
 to the Deputy. The net result was that each county had to 
 sustain the drain of what would now be called " landlord's 
 exactions " in duplicate, the chief sucking it dry from one 
 quarter and the sheriff from another. 
 
 While the general unrest in southern Ulster was gradually 
 crystallizing into definite rebellion, two contemporaneous 
 events may be considered, each of which, in its turn, had a 
 marked effect upon the political outlook in the north. 
 
 Tyrone had already married three wives, one of whom was 
 divorced and the other two dead, and in 1591 he aspired to fill 
 up the periodical vacancy with Mabel Bagenal, the youngest 
 sister of the Marshal. It will be remembered that Tirlough 
 Luineach had made a somewhat similar proposition with 
 regard to the old Marshal's sister-in-law, in respect of which 
 he had been very rudely rebuffed. The younger O'Neil received 
 no better encouragement in the matter of Mabel, but Tyrone 
 was a very different person from old Tirlough Luineach, and 
 he was not in the least disposed to take " No " for a final 
 answer. So importunate did he in the end become, that in 
 August, 1591, Bagenal thought it advisable to send his sister 
 off to stay with Sir Patrick Barnewall at Turvey. As to what 
 subsequently happened we have only Tyrone's own account, 
 which is as follows : Having learnt of the place in which his 
 lady was concealed, Tyrone arrived there one night with a 
 select band of followers and entered Sir Patrick's house, where 
 the whole party was pleasantly entertained, and where much 
 wine flowed. After dinner Mabel went off quite willingly, 
 riding pillion behind Captain William Warren, to whose house 
 at Drumconragh the whole party then rode. There the 
 marriage was duly solemnized by no less a person than the 
 Bishop of Meath,* who afterwards deposed that the lady 
 had gone through the ceremony willingly enough."!" If so, it 
 must have been the wealth and position of the bridegroom 
 which attracted, for Tyrone was well on the way to fifty, and 
 Mabel was twenty, and number four ! J 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 149-39, and Vol. 160-58. 
 t Meehan's " Lives of the Earls." 
 J Cal. State Papers, Vol. 149-58.
 
 144 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 In this affair romantic or otherwise Tyrone was not quite 
 the lovesick swain that might be imagined. There was a 
 prosaically sordid background to his apparent infatuation, for 
 Mabel had a marriage portion of one thousand pounds which 
 had been left her by old Sir Nicholas, and which her brother 
 not unnaturally refused to hand over. Even two years after 
 the marriage, the Earl was still making piteous representations 
 to the Privy Council on the subject.* 
 
 Although the Bagenal-Tyrone alliance can scarcely be 
 described as a love match, the Earl seems to have made certain 
 efforts at the start to please his new bride. He gave her a 
 Welsh woman as a tiring-maid, and spent quite a considerable 
 sum of money on modernizing Dungannon Castle, which he 
 fitted up with expensive furniture got over expressly from 
 London."|" These new toys may have pleased the Countess at 
 the beginning, but Tyrone's conduct in other directions did not 
 at all please her. His constancy, unfortunately, left much to 
 be desired, with the result that domestic harmony at Dungannon 
 Castle was very short-lived indeed. Tyrone was much puzzled 
 by his wife's narrow views. In apparently genuine surprise he 
 complained to the Privy Council that " because I do affect 
 two other gentlewomen, she has me in mislike."J In the end 
 Tyrone's patriarchal relations with the " other two gentle- 
 women " (Magennis's daughter and Angus McDonnell's 
 daughter) proved too much for poor Mabel, and within a very 
 short time of her marriage she left her lord and went back to 
 live with her brother Henry in Newry. She died in 1596. 
 Tyrone's abduction and subsequent ill-usage of his sister did 
 much to increase the hatred which already existed between 
 Bagenal and Tyrone, and the mutual enmity thus bred and 
 nourished was not without its effect upon the subsequent trend 
 of events in Ulster. 
 
 An event of far greater political importance was the escape of 
 Hugh Roe O'Donnell from Dublin Castle. Perrot had been 
 approached by Ineenduv, soon after Hugh Roe's capture, with 
 an offer of two thousand pounds if he would arrange his 
 release or escape ; but Perrot failed to accomplish the first, 
 
 * Carew MSS., 1594-137. Tyrone to Privy Council, Nov. 1593. 
 
 t Fitzwilliam to Burleigh, Dec. 1591. 
 
 J Trevelyan Papers. 
 
 Perrot to Walsingham, March 18th, 1588.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 145 
 
 and, having so failed, was afraid to attempt the second. The 
 offer was renewed to the more facile Fitzwilliam, who made 
 strenuous efforts to get Burleigh to agree to Hugh Roe's release. 
 He put forward many specious reasons why it was "impolitic 
 to keep the heir-presumptive to the Donegal chiefry any longer 
 in confinement ; adding ingenuously : " And upon my honour 
 no reward maketh me write this much."* Burleigh, however, 
 was obdurate on the subject, and Hugh Roe remained in Dublin 
 Castle till 1590, when Fitzwilliam who was both greedier and 
 more venturesome than Perrot determined to take the risk of 
 manipulating the young O'Donnell's escape. 
 
 The whole affair, however, proved a lamentable fiasco. 
 Hugh Roe got safely away as far as the house of a friend of his 
 named Phelim O'Toole, but O'Toole gave information to Charles 
 Segar, who was then Governor of the Castle, and the prisoner 
 was recaptured, to the no little mortification no doubt of the 
 Deputy, whose arrangement with Ineenduv was on the basis 
 of payment by results. 
 
 A year later things were better managed. On this occasion 
 Tyrone took charge of the arrangements. Richard Weston, his 
 English Chancellor of the Exchequer, went to Dublin, taking 
 with him one thousand pounds in gold and a quantity of sarsnet, 
 which had been given him by Captain Garrett Moore."j* The 
 sarsnet was for the purpose of making a rope, and the cash was 
 to be dispensed as occasion might demand. Since Hugh Roe's 
 first attempted escape changes had taken place in Dublin 
 Castle ; these came about as follows : Segar, the Governor, 
 had been offered large sums to effect the release of Phelim 
 O'Reilly, and, being presumably an honest or a timid man, had 
 made a clean breast of the whole affair to Fitzwilliam. His 
 reward was to be removed from the government of the Castle, 
 which was then bestowed on one John Maplesden. J To John 
 Maplesden, then, went Weston with his one thousand pounds. 
 What actually transpired between Weston, Fitzwilliam and 
 Maplesden is not known, but subsequent events point sug- 
 gestively to the conclusion that, whereas Maplesden got all 
 the blame, Fitzwilliam got all the money. In any event, the 
 money would have been of no use to Maplesden, for two days 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 148-24. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part IV .-21. 
 
 J Fynes Moryson Itinerary. 
 
 10
 
 146 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 after Hugh Roe's escape he conveniently died.* The chain of 
 circumstances is peculiar so peculiar, in fact, that it is diffi- 
 cult to believe that Maplesden's sudden and very opportune 
 death was entirely due to natural causes. 
 
 Fitzwilliam, of course, sheltered himself behind the dead 
 Governor. He wrote to Burleigh reporting with virtuous 
 pride that not content with the Governor's death he had 
 posthumously removed him from his office, and, in addition, 
 had caused the head jailer to be loaded with irons and cast 
 into a dungeon. These marks of zeal were apparently accepted 
 in high quarters as proof of Fitzwilliam' s non-complicity, for, 
 as far as we know, nothing more was heard of the matter at the 
 time. Russell, however, who succeeded Fitzwilliam, would 
 seem to have had his own views on the subject of Hugh Roe's 
 escape and its causes, for we find him pointing out in a letter 
 to Burleigh in 1595 that " Fitzwilliam discharged the former 
 Constable of the Castle, and left his own man in his stead, 
 which urgeth suspicion of great compositions in the matter.""j" 
 Burleigh no doubt communicated this intelligence to the Queen, 
 and so set her thinking, for two years later she informed Lord 
 Burgh that " she had certain information that Hugh Roe had 
 escaped by practice of money bestowed on somebody. " J 
 
 The escape itself was carried out in a thoroughly business-like 
 manner. In the Castle, in addition to Hugh Roe O'Donnell, 
 were Shane's two sons, Henry and Art. The sarsnet provided 
 by Captain Garrett Moore proved quite adequate for the 
 purpose for which it was intended. A rope was made by means 
 of which the three let themselves down over the wall, forced 
 the door on to the bridge across the moat with a convenient 
 baulk of timber (no doubt placed there for the purpose), and 
 so walked out. The sentry was absent. Now it is interesting 
 to note that the 1,000 bribe, as well as the sarsnet and the 
 pocket-money which accompanied it, had been ostensibly 
 supplied for the benefit of Hugh Roe only, Shane's sons being 
 the objects of Tyrone's very particular loathing. The fact of 
 their being included in the escaping party is therefore rather 
 remarkable, and furnishes strong presumptive evidence that, 
 in the first place, Fitzwilliam was no party to the escape of 
 
 * Fitzwilliam to Burleigh, June 2nd, 1592. 
 t Russell to Burleigh, April, 1595. 
 j Carew MSS., 1597-269.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER ^ 
 
 Shane's sons (for which he had not been paid), and, in the 
 second place, that Tyrone was a party to it, and had planned 
 it with a view to getting Henry and Art into his own hands. 
 His immediate seizure of Henry on his arrival at Dungannon 
 leaves little room for doubt on this point. 
 
 The three fugitives, having got clear of Dublin, made their 
 way on foot as far as Ballynecor,* where they were able to buy 
 a good horse, which helped them along on their way. On the 
 day following another horse was bought from a man named 
 Feagh McHugh, which gave Hugh Roe and Henry a horse 
 apiece. Poor Art had no need of one, for he had grown very 
 fat in prison, and the exposure and cold killed him on the second 
 day. The two survivors now rode on to Mellifont Abbey in 
 Louth, where Captain Garrett Moore gave them fresh horses in 
 exchange for their worn-out ones,^ By this means they were 
 able to reach the house of Tirlough McHenry in the Fews. 
 From there they went on to Armagh, and finally reached Dun- 
 gannon safely, but in a state of extreme exhaustion and misery, 
 for the weather had been intensely cold. Here Henry McShane 
 was saved any further fatigue, for Tyrone at once clapped him 
 into prison alongside of his brothers Con and Brian. 
 
 Hugh Roe, after a good rest and a long and secret political 
 discussion with his father-in-law, went on to Maguire at Belleek, 
 and finally reached Donegal ; but he was very ill for a long 
 while, and his two great toes had to be amputated as the result 
 of frost-bite. The situation, however, was well worth the loss 
 of two toes, for Hugh Roe was now not only the undisputed 
 heir to the chiefry, but essential lord of Donegal as well, old 
 Hugh McManus, his father, being quite past ruling. The 
 same could certainly not be said of his mother. That remark- 
 able woman was as active and ambitious as ever. Her military 
 capacity was no less conspicuous than her political zeal. 
 Between the dates of Hugh Roe's first and second escapes she 
 swept away the last obstacle that stood in the way of her 
 beloved son's succession, by completely crushing his half- 
 brother in a battle at Glencolumbkill, in which Donnell himself 
 and two hundred of his followers were killed .J This was but 
 preliminary to the last step which was destined to set the 
 
 * Median says that they stayed a fortnight with O'Byrne in Glenmalure, 
 but this is not probable. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part IV.-21. J Four Masters. 
 
 10*
 
 148 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 crown on her long-cherished ambition. No sooner was Hugh 
 Roe convalescent, than Ineenduv persuaded her lord to abdi- 
 cate in favour of his son, and in May, 1592, Hugh Roe was 
 officially installed as the O'Donnell at Kilmacrenan.* The 
 election, however, was by no means universally popular, on 
 account of the candidate's half -Scotch origin, and many stayed 
 away, including old Hugh McHugh Duv, the representative of 
 the junior line, Sir John O'Dogherty, the O' Gallaghers, and, 
 jt need scarcely be added, all the sons of Con McCalvagh.| 
 
 Although Neil Garv was the only one of these nine brothers 
 who achieved any historical prominence, the fate of the others 
 is not without its bearing on the story of Ulster. Tirlough 
 Luineach having under persuasion by Perrot got rid of his 
 Scotch army, and being subsequently deserted by his English 
 bands, found himself practically defenceless, a circumstance 
 which Tyrone lost no time in attempting to turn to his own 
 advantage. Mainly, however, owing to the chance presence 
 at Strabane of Captain Mostyn and some English soldiers, 
 Tyrone's first attempt miscarried, and he was badly defeated 
 at Carricklea, as already described. This was on May 1st, 
 1589, nearly two years before Hugh Roe's escape. In spite of 
 this extremely fortunate victory, Tirlough Luineach was wise 
 enough to see that he must speedily be crushed unless his 
 standing army could be replaced. He accordingly took imme- 
 diate steps to get over some of the Scots that Hugh McShane 
 had already contracted for in Cantyre, and, within three months 
 of the battle of Carricklea, we find him with a certain number 
 of these hardy warriors at his disposal. In the security ensured 
 by their presence he rebuilt Strabane in 1591, J and handed 
 back Lifford to the sons of Con McCalvagh. This act had the 
 natural effect of reviving the eternal feud between the main 
 line of the O'Donnells (at the time represented by Ineenduv) and 
 the descendants of Calvagh. Almost immediately after Con's 
 sons had resumed occupation of their ancestral possessions, 
 Calvagh, the eldest of the nine brothers, was ambushed and 
 killed near the River Finn. A year later the same fate overtook 
 the second brother Manus very near the same spot. This 
 made the third murder that Ineenduv had brought off within 
 twelve months, for Hugh Gallagher's assassination was sand- 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 165-6-1. f Four Masters. 
 
 #1. State Papers, Vol. 164-36-1.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 149 
 
 wiched in between that of the two brothers. Neil Gary was 
 now the eldest survivor of the nine (his brother Nachten having 
 been killed as early as 1582),* and in the autumn of 1580, almost 
 immediately, in fact, after the arrival of Tirlough Luineach's 
 Scots, he borrowed some companies of these warriors, and, to 
 avenge the death of his brothers, made a raid on the O' Gallagher 
 country in central Donegal. All these events took place while 
 Hugh Roe was still a prisoner in Dublin Castle, and they are 
 only of interest as explaining the first of that young man's 
 acts on attaining convalescence. Incidentally, it may be noted 
 that it is extremely doubtful whether the indolent and easy- 
 going O'Neil would have ventured on so provocative a step as 
 the reinstatement of Con's sons in the disputed territory of the 
 Finn Valley, had he foreseen that Hugh Roe would so soon 
 make his escape. The wind, however, had been sown, and 
 the tempest had to be reaped. It was not long in coming. 
 As soon as the young O'Donnell's toes were healed, he set out 
 to avenge the various wrongs to his name and prestige. Making 
 a sudden dash across the Mourne, he ravaged and burned all 
 the Strabane district, at the same time putting to the sword 
 every man found capable of bearing arms.f It was unfortunate 
 for Tirlough Luineach, in this emergency, that almost all his 
 Scots had by now crossed the river and taken service with the 
 sons of Con, who were young and energetic, and whose enter- 
 prising spirit opened a wider field for the exercise of their 
 calling than was to be found with the old O'Neil, who was by 
 this time, according to Fitzwilliam, " quite past government, 
 being overcome by the drink which he is daily in."J He was 
 also without any efficient commander. His two sons Art and 
 Cormac had long ago deserted him and ranged themselves 
 on the side of Tyrone, and he was generally friendless and 
 deserted. Lady Agnes, his wife, was still detained a prisoner 
 in Scotland by her brother Angus. The old man was therefore 
 practically alone in the world, and quite powerless to offer any 
 opposition to Hugh Roe's devastations. 
 
 Encouraged by his initial success, Hugh Roe next swept 
 down upon O'Cahan, who, as an urragh of Tirlough Luineach, 
 offered a legitimate target for his spleen. O'Cahan,jj^on this 
 occasion, reckoned discretion to be the better part of valour, 
 
 * Four Masters. j Four Masters. 
 
 \ Fitzwilliam to Burleigh, Dec. 30th, 1591,.
 
 150 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 and prudently shut himself up in his Castle of Limavady, while 
 Hugh Roe ravaged the whole of his country unopposed, and 
 returned in triumph and with much prey to Donegal. 
 
 Nothing succeeds like success, and O'Dogherty, fearing a 
 similar visitation for Inishowen, hurriedly made his submission 
 to the conquering O'Donnell, and was provisionally forgiven 
 for his reprehensible absence from the inaugural ceremony at 
 Kilmacrenan. 
 
 The whole chain of events is singularly instructive as an 
 illustration of the curious Irish reading of the lex talionis. The 
 casus belli in this instance had been the re-establishment of 
 Con McCalvagh's sons in the Finn Valley. Tirlough Luineach 
 was responsible for this, for only through his means could 
 they get the Scotch fighting men whose backing alone made 
 the project feasible. As a protest against the whole trans- 
 action, Tirlough Luineach was raided, and O'Cahan (who had 
 nothing whatever to do with the matter, but who was a source 
 of revenue to Tirlough Luineach) was also raided ; but the 
 sons of Con, whose annexation of lands was the actual cause 
 of offence, were carefully given a wide berth, and left in undis- 
 turbed possession of the Finn Valley. This curious misdirec- 
 tion of revenge was no doubt prompted by the knowledge that 
 Con's sons had a substantial fighting force at their back, while 
 Tirlough Luineach and O'Cahan had not.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Institution of Assize Courts in Ulster The great benefits conferred The feudal 
 system in Ireland Efforts of the chiefs to retain it Opinions of Wil- 
 braham and Weston Tyrone's religious attitude The unimportance of 
 Irish popular opinion Causes of Tyrone's difficulties with the Scots 
 Insult to Angus McDonnell's daughter Political reasons for Tyrone's 
 preference for Magennis's daughter Shane McBrian offers for Angus's 
 daughter Angus's fury against Tyrone Tyrone is forced to organize an 
 Irish Army Absence of enthusiasm for his cause Introduction of the 
 religious question Maganran is nominated Primate of all Ireland His 
 death. 
 
 THE execution of Hugh Roe McMahon had among other 
 things sounded the knell of martial law in Ulster. 
 The old system of summary jurisdiction was, by order of 
 Elizabeth, superseded by periodical Assize Courts, where not 
 only political offences of the first magnitude were disposed of, 
 but where the grievances and disputes of the proletariat could 
 be remedied or adjusted by duly qualified persons having no 
 interest in the verdict. Curiously enough, the first experi- 
 mental field of the new system was the county of Monaghan 
 itself, where, according to reports of members of the Circuit, 
 its advent was hailed with extravagant demonstrations of 
 delight by the humbler sections of the population.* Such a 
 statement coming from such a quarter would not have a high 
 historical value were it not supported by the extreme probability 
 of its truth. Where the lower orders are systematically trodden 
 under heels of iron, any form of redress and any Court of 
 appeal must necessarily be welcome. The condition of the 
 lower orders in Monaghan at the time of the Circuit are set 
 out, in harrowing detail, in long descriptive letters written 
 shortly afterwards by Judge Weston and Mr. Solicitor Wil- 
 braham. The conditions of society which these letters disclose 
 are so bad that it is not difficult to believe that any form of 
 justice, however crude, would come as a godsend to those who 
 knew of no law but that of the stronger. Justice to the poor 
 
 * Mr. Solicitor Wilbraham to Burleigh, Sept. 1593.
 
 152 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 in Ireland was outside the experience of any man. The feudal 
 system, long since dead in England, was still in full vigour in 
 the sister isle. The chiefs exercised absolute power of life 
 and death, limb and property, over their thralls. They were 
 untrammelled tyrants. The soil-tillers were assessed no higher 
 than the beasts of the field. Their lives had no value. All 
 that they produced was their lord's, and their only claim to be 
 allowed to cumber the ground was so that they might satisfy 
 his greed. The views of Neil Garv O'Donnell on this point* 
 may be taken as representative of the views of all Irish chiefs 
 of the day. That people, who were assessed no higher than 
 the lower animals, should now have a judicial assembly to 
 which they could appeal for redress against acts of tyranny, 
 was to the chiefs an outrageous reversal of all that was tradi- 
 tional and proper. The end of such things, they argued, could 
 only be the gradual paralysis of the chieftain's divine rights 
 throughout Ulster, and the substitution of those detestable 
 forms of arbitration which went by the name of Justice. They 
 saw in front of them, in short, a revolutionary programme of 
 an advanced type, and, following the example of all tyrants 
 of all ages, they prepared to resist it by every reactionary 
 engine within their reach. 
 
 And so it fell out that, in more ways than one, Hugh Roe 
 McMahon's execution was responsible for the outbreak of the 
 ten years' rebellion, for, cordially as the act itself was hated, 
 and its recurrence feared by the chiefs, the reformation in the 
 administration of justice, which it made necessary, was even 
 more feared. No Russian Grand Duke ever dreaded the eman- 
 cipation of the serfs more than the Ulster chiefs dreaded the 
 elevation of the peasants to the status of human beings. Sir 
 Geoffrey Fenton, who knew Ireland as well as most men, was 
 convinced that Tyrone's real grievance was " the establishment 
 of a settled Government in Monaghan and Fermanagh, which 
 he and Hugh Roe feared would in time come their way.""j' Sir 
 George Carew, another Anglo-Irishman of long and wide ex- 
 perience, held the same view. " The universal desire of the 
 Ulster chiefs," he wrote to Burleigh, " is to keep justice out, 
 so that they may tyrannize with absolute power, confiscating 
 both goods and lives at pleasure."; Wilbraham, the Solicitor- 
 
 * See Ch. xxix. j Fenton to Burleigh, Aug. 2nd, 159i, 
 
 $ Carew MSS., 1594,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 153 
 
 General, after the Circuit of Down, says much the same thing 
 in rather different form : " Neil McBrian Feartagh and 
 McCartan seek no letters patent so long as they may ravin at 
 pleasure on their tenants, which are thralled in misery." The 
 letters patent here referred to were those which conferred on the 
 holder the benefit of a lease in perpetuity from the Crown. 
 
 Contemporaneous reflections such as these, in all their 
 quaint crudity of language, often give a clearer view of the 
 state of a dead-and-gone society than a rnore carefully-worded 
 epitome of the same. The report of Sir William Weston, the 
 judge, after the Down Circuit, is particularly illuminating both 
 as to the unhappy condition of the country and the causes 
 responsible for it. The two main causes pointed to are in- 
 security of tenure and the absence of any fixed rent, the custom 
 being for the chiefs to take from their people anything and 
 everything they wanted according to the caprice of the moment. 
 Such relations can, in no circumstances, breed love between 
 chief and thrall, nor is it conceivable that such existed in 
 Ulster at the end of the sixteenth century. A certain super- 
 stitious glamour undoubtedly surrounded the person of the 
 chief, but it was not born of love. Bingham, in writing to 
 Burleigh, gave it as his opinion that both Hugh Roe O'Donnell's 
 and Maguire's people would gladly cut their chiefs' throats if 
 they could.* Bingham wrote this in August, 1593, and six 
 months later in allusion to Tyrone's share in the rising 
 Bagenal wrote that " Tyrone is threatening with fire and 
 sword all who will not join him." The fact behind this com- 
 munication is interesting, inasmuch as it completely negatives 
 any idea of a popular and universal aim behind the earlier part 
 of a rebellion which, for ten years, taxed all the resources of 
 Elizabeth's Ministers ; nor, indeed, was there any such aim, till 
 the moment when Tyrone, recognizing that the element of 
 universality was essential to the continuance of the struggle, 
 introduced the question of religion. At the outset, however, 
 the rebellion was simply a revolt of the chiefs against innovations 
 which threatened their personal interests, or to put it in 
 plainer language still which threatened their untrammelled 
 despotism over their serfs. 
 
 From such a situation the elements of successful rebellion 
 would appeal- to be completely absent. Bagenal wrote to 
 
 * Uinghain to Burleigh, Aug. 1598,
 
 154 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Burgh in 1592 : " The people of Tyrone do earnestly desire 
 to be delivered from the intolerable burden of the lawless 
 charges which the Earl and Tirlough Luineach daily impose 
 upon them." If this were so and it is impossible to doubt 
 the truth of this statement the masses of the Irish people 
 should by rights have been ranged on the side of the Govern- 
 ment rather than of the rebel chiefs. It must be remembered, 
 however, that in Ulster the situation was remarkable, and, 
 in fact, unique to this extent, that the chiefs in rebellion were 
 virtually independent of the goodwill or sympathy of their 
 subjects. The tribal raiding forces, it is true, were home 
 products, but except as raiders they had little military value. 
 When any movement of unusual magnitude was on foot, the 
 reliance of the chiefs was almost entirely on hired foreign troops 
 specially brought over for the purpose, usually from Cantyre, 
 Argyleshire, or the Western Isles. Such being the conditions, 
 the goodwill or co-operation of the natives was non-essential. 
 They were not even pawns in the game ; they were rather the 
 board on which all the combatants alike trampled. Unfortu- 
 nately, however, for the development of Tyrone's scheme, he 
 had, by his own act, when he hanged Hugh McShane, cut 
 himself off from all hope of military aid in the future from 
 either the Macleans or the Campbells. Hugh's mother, the 
 Countess of Argyle, had been a Maclean by birth and a Camp- 
 bell by marriage, and both these clans looked upon Hugh's 
 execution as a personal affront offered to their blood, and from 
 the year 1589 onwards refused Tyrone all support.* For the 
 next six years he still had the McDonnells, on whom he could, 
 and did, draw for troops, but in the end, by another short- 
 sighted act, he succeeded in alienating the sympathies of that 
 clan as effectually as those of the Macleans and Campbells. 
 
 Shortly after his marriage with Mabel Bagenal, Tyrone had 
 to the just indignation of that young lady " affected two other 
 gentlewomen," of whom one was the daughter of Angus 
 McDonnell and the other the sister of Arthur Magennis. The 
 patriarchal simplicity of this arrangement did not appeal to 
 Mabel, and after two years of life at ^Dungannon she went back 
 to her brother at Newry. Shortly afterwards Tyrone grew weary 
 of Angus' s daughter and sent her about her ways, and when 
 Mabel Bagenal died, in 1595, he married Magennis's sister with 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 183-77-1. Carew MSS., 1596-261.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 155 
 
 a considerable flourish of trumpets. The probability is that 
 the alliance was purely political. In fact, we are told that, in 
 the sixteenth century, neither the Irish chiefs nor those under 
 them ever married except for the purpose of gaining some 
 political or financial advantage. Love-affairs were never 
 cemented by marriage,* because in such cases there was nothing 
 tangible to be gained by the ceremony, and it therefore 
 appeared unnecessary. 
 
 Angus was, at the date of Mabel Bagenal's death, a waning 
 power in Ulster. His agent, McNess, could raise no more 
 than sixty men in the Glynns, and was already beginning to be 
 overshadowed and threatened with extinction by the growing 
 power of the sons of Sorley Boy. 
 
 The Magennis alliance, on the other hand, offered far greater 
 possibilities. Old Sir Hugh had always been a loyal subject, 
 and was consequently cordially hated by Tyrone, who, in 
 order to mark his displeasure, raided him in 1595 (after burning 
 Bagenal's flour mills at Newry), and carried off fifteen hundred 
 of his cattle. Old Sir Hugh did not long survive this attack, 
 for he died on January 12th in the following year, 1596. Tyrone, 
 however, was still very bitter against the family, and instead 
 of approving the succession of Sir Hugh's eldest son Arthur, 
 he nominated one Glasney McCawley (Magennis) as tanist of 
 the country, f in spite of the fact that Arthur was his own 
 son-in-law. This last step had the desired effect, as Tyrone well 
 knew that it would. Arthur Magennis discarded the cause of 
 Elizabeth, and made abject submission to the Earl, who, in 
 return, married his son-in-law's sister, and conferred upon the 
 brother of his new wife the lordship over the whole of Lecale, 
 Kilwarlin and McCartan's country, in addition to that of his 
 own lands of Iveagh. The situation was now satisfactorily 
 smoothed out for all parties concerned, with the exception of 
 Angus and his daughter. Shane McBrian, who was lord of 
 North Clandeboye, and therefore a neighbour of Angus in the 
 Glynns, came forward with a sporting offer to marry the cast-off 
 lady, | seeing, no doubt, opportunities in the situation for con- 
 solidating his lands and those of the adjoining Glynns, but the 
 offer was not favourably received. 
 
 * See Appendix A to Introduction Carew MSS., 1589-1600. 
 t Russell to Burleigh, Jan. 20th, 1595. 
 j Cal. State Papers, Vol. 188-9.
 
 156 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Angus' s rage at the humiliation to his blood knew no bounds, 
 and, from the day when Tyrone married Magennis's sister, he 
 became his implacable foe.* While Tyrone was on his honey- 
 moon at Castle Roe on the Bann, the old McDonnell wrote 
 Russell a letter signed by both himself and his eldest son, 
 Donald Gorm, offering the Queen the services of himself, his 
 sons and the entire McDonnell clan against the perfidious Earl. 
 
 The practical outcome of the chain of events above 
 described was that, by the end of 1596, Tyrone had succeeded 
 in alienating the friendship of all the three Scotch clans chiefly 
 identified with the interests of Ulster. An entirely new military 
 situation was thus created, and it speedily became clear to 
 Tyrone that, if he was going to rebel and fight the English 
 Government, it would have to be with Irish soldiers. This 
 meant hard work and new departures in various directions, 
 but Tyrone was not the man to be daunted by the unaccus- 
 tomed. Spanish drill-sergeants, specially sent over for the 
 purpose, were set to work on the local raw material, and for 
 several years, prior to the final collision at Kinsale (1601), 
 the Irish kerne and gallowglasses, and the freshly-recruited 
 peasantry were " infinitely belaboured with drill," to their 
 extreme disgust. The net result, however, was, in the end, 
 the formation of a native army independent of Scotland ; and 
 in Tyrone's Kinsale army, estimated at 6,500 men, the only 
 foreign element was 120 Scots under Randall McSorley.f 
 
 It was with the idea of inspiring this new army with the 
 necessary enthusiasm that the religious element was intro- 
 duced. Tyrone was fully alive to the fact that the movement 
 which he had in contemplation was no mere tribal raid, where 
 the prospect of rapine and pillage would have been an all- 
 sufficient incentive. He aimed at a general rising in which 
 not only Ulster but the whole of Ireland should take part. 
 For the success of an undertaking on such a scale, the sym- 
 pathy, if not the enthusiastic support, of the entire population 
 was all but essential. There was, the Earl recognized, one 
 force and one force only strong enough to compel such sym- 
 pathy, and that was religion. Religion, too, was obviously 
 the only ground on which the material aid of Spain could be 
 logically invoked. He accordingly assumed the pose of a, 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 205-100. 
 t Chichester to Cecil, Nov. 22nd, 1601.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 157 
 
 religious reformer struggling to free his country from the burden 
 of heretical institutions. This attitude was all the more 
 necessary in view of the fact that the real, but undisclosed, 
 object for which the chiefs were fighting was beyond the 
 understanding of the rank and file, and was indeed an object 
 with which the rank and file had they understood would 
 have been anything but sympathetic. Religion was there- 
 fore waved before their eyes. It was given out that the 
 rebellion aimed at the extirpation of heresy and at the restora- 
 tion to Ireland of her ancient pure religion. 
 
 The proclamation of a Holy War seldom fails of its object. 
 It is the surest appeal to the murderous instincts of the un- 
 educated yet discovered. In the case of the Ulster rebellion 
 it was not slow in imparting to a rather obscure movement a 
 definite aim which was within the intellectual grasp of all. 
 The crusade against the introduction of English customs was 
 interpreted by the priests as a crusade against heresy and the 
 introduction of heretical innovations calculated to undermine 
 the true faith. In the days of the Holy Inquisition, repre- 
 sentations such as these rarely failed to achieve their aim. 
 There was no need for them to be backed by any intricate points 
 of doctrine. The religious mind of the sixteenth century was 
 not analytical. The waving of an emblem or the muttering 
 of a catch-word was enough. In Ulster the religious motive 
 produced, if not open enthusiasm, at all events an incentive 
 strong enough to bind the people together in a common cause 
 against the new English forms of government. And so it came 
 about that at first half-heartedly, but later on with more 
 ardour the down-trodden and deluded Ulster proletariat 
 ranged itself in the name of God on the side of those who were 
 fighting to crush its new-born liberties. 
 
 The religious atmosphere in which the selfish designs of the 
 chiefs was thus shrouded had naturally the full approval of 
 the Vatican. A priest of the name of Magauran was nominated 
 by the Pope Roman Catholic Primate of all Ireland, and, in 
 the earlier stages of the rebellion, this militant cleric gave a 
 fine theatrical touch to the movement by arraying himself 
 in mail armour from head to heel, and from the back of a white 
 charger proclaiming a Holy War, the extirpation of heresy 
 and the speedy interference of Spain in the interests of the 
 true faith. Magauran's holy mission was, however, pre-
 
 158 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 maturely cut short by the very force which he had imprudently 
 invoked. In June, 1593, just at the time when his fabled 
 Spanish army should have been arriving, he and a party of 
 the Maguires were caught in Connaught by some of Sir Richard 
 Bingham's people, and a scuffle ensued in which Magauran 
 and six or seven others were killed. The religious idea, how- 
 ever, had by this time taken a firm hold of the popular imagina- 
 tion, and from the propaganda point of view Magauran' s mission 
 had not been wholly in vain.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 The rebellious chiefs show caution Execution of Maguire Suspicion of under- 
 standing between Bingham and Maguire Tyrone's riches Siege of the 
 Blackwater Fort Fitzwilliam bids Maguire disband his forces Maguire 
 defies him Tyrone and Bagenal ordered to attack Bagenal marches out 
 of Newry Suspected double-dealing of Tyrone Capture of Connor Roe's 
 cattle Tyrone explains Battle of Belleek Courageous conduct of Capt. 
 Lee Ignominious flight of Maguire Bagenal and Tyrone wounded 
 Siege of Enniskillen Its capture Randall McNess offers assistance on 
 behalf of Angus McDonnell Angus is in consequence raided by Brian 
 McArt Capture of Bagenal's horses Timidity of the rebel chiefs Loftus, 
 Gardiner and St. Leger form a court of inquiry Their meeting with Tyrone 
 and Hugh Roe Astonishing results Recommendations of the Com- 
 missioners in favour of Tyrone Disastrous consequences of the Govern- 
 ment's weakness O'Hanlon and Maguire join the rebels Continued loyalty 
 of Tirlough Luineach His offers of assistance Capt. Merriman is sent to 
 bring him to Dublin Death of Tirlough Luineach. 
 
 '~TT V HE rebellion materialized very slowly. All the chiefs 
 L concerned, with the exception of Maguire, exercised 
 a caution which, in the circumstances, seemed extreme ; 
 and it can hardly be doubted that, with any Deputy other 
 than Fitzwilliam on the Vice-Throne, the rebellion would 
 never have got beyond the preliminary stages. Fitzwilliam, 
 however, was a man of whom all things were possible except 
 honest dealing in the interests of his sovereign. Tyrone (while 
 he was still posing as a loyal servant of Elizabeth) accused both 
 him and Bagenal of taking bribes from Maguire, and Sir Geoffrey 
 Fenton endorsed the accusation as far as Fitzwilliam went, but 
 exculpated the Marshal, who was a particular friend of his.* 
 
 Where the head falls away from the path of honour, the 
 limbs are not slow to follow. It was soon hinted that Sir 
 Richard Bingham, too, had a secret understanding with 
 Maguire, and there was certainly much in his subsequent 
 behaviour on several occasions to lend colour to the suggestion. 
 It is doubtful whether Maguire himself had much to offer, but 
 Tyrone was certainly a very rich man, drawing from rents 
 alone some 80,000 a year, and from Spanish sources periodical 
 subsidies of very considerable value. What these subsidies 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 208, Part II.-16. 
 159
 
 160 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 amounted to in the aggregate is not known, but a man named 
 iMoriarty McShee swore that by one ship alone Tyrone received 
 18,000 in gold and 600 barrels of powder.* It is more than 
 probable that Maguire's bribes were secretly furnished by 
 Tyrone, the latter being debarred by his assumed pose of 
 loyalty from appearing personally in the matter ; but no 
 such obstacle stood in the way of his monetary relations with 
 the members of the Dublin Bureaucracy, and it is established 
 beyond doubt that these men were practically all in his pay. 
 Tyrone was never afraid of spending money. He was no 
 general, but he was a born diplomatist, and no man has ever 
 more fully recognized the limitless power of gold judiciously 
 directed into influential pockets. His seditious practices were 
 common table-talk, and yet, so adroitly did he distribute 
 his gold, that his protestations of unswerving allegiance to the 
 Queen were in spite of continuous evidence to the contrary 
 stoutly and successfully backed up by the confirmatory 
 testimonials of every official in Dublin. The very first offensive 
 act of the rebellion was in itself sufficient to prove Tyrone's 
 complicity to anybody who was not wilfully blind. The 
 Blackwater fort was invested by the Earl's favourite nephew, 
 Brian McArt, supported by his own familiar sept, the O'Hagans. 
 No violence was attempted against the fort itself, but none 
 of the garrison were allowed to go out after provisions, nor 
 was any native allowed to trade with those inside. One soldier 
 who stole out after food was killed, and another captured and 
 held to ransom. Captain Keyes wrote in remonstrance to 
 Tyrone, but the Earl, though deeply sympathetic, regretted 
 his complete helplessness in the matter, owing to the delay 
 in the receipt of his official protection from the Deputy a thin 
 excuse which was hardly worthy of Tyrone's usual plausibility. 
 
 The Blackwater garrison were soon in very sore straits for 
 food, but their final overthrow was not due to famine or to 
 the sword, but to other causes which were the subject of much 
 comment and of an abortive court-martial, to which reference 
 will be made in due course. 
 
 Fitzwilliam's first dealings with the Maguire rebellion were 
 of the very mildest order. He sent the rebels a polite request 
 to disband their troops ; to which Maguire, with equal polite- 
 ness, replied from Enniskillen that his most earnest desire 
 
 ' Mountjoy to Cecil. Aug. 1603.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 161 
 
 was to disband his troops, but that he had passed them his 
 word to retain them for six months, and that he therefore 
 could not do so without dishonour. Moreover, he added that 
 if he did so, without first obtaining a protection from the Deputy, 
 it would lay him open to attacks from Sir Richard Bingham 
 on the Connaught side. Nothing could have been more con- 
 ciliatory than Fitzwilliam's acceptance of this thinly- veiled 
 defiance. Bingham was instructed to refrain from molesting 
 the courteous rebel, and Tyrone was asked, as a loyal subject 
 of the Queen, to use his good offices to prevail on the mis- 
 guided Maguire to disband his forces. Tyrone was quite 
 willing to lend his services, and in July Fitzwilliam received 
 a letter from him saying that he had seen Maguire, who agreed 
 to disband his forces within six weeks, and that done to 
 present himself in suppliant mood, and under Tyrone's escort, 
 before the Lord Deputy. Fitzwilliam, however, was not 
 now quite in the same affable mood, and he replied curtly 
 that Maguire must disband all men who did not belong to his 
 own county within twenty days, and within twenty days 
 present himself before the Deputy, failing which, Tyrone was 
 to attack him from the north, simultaneously with Bingham 
 from the west. The reservation with regard to men of his 
 own county is interesting as showing that Fitzwilliam was 
 thoroughly conversant with the real state of affairs, which 
 was that Maguire' s chief strength lay in the Donegal men, 
 Neil Garv, Sir John O'Dogherty and the three McSweeneys, 
 and in the strong force of Scots which Hugh Roe had sent 
 him under their command. He had a very small following from 
 his own country, the greater part of which was attached to 
 Connor Roe. 
 
 The next step in the comedy is most instructive, and, if 
 anything could have opened Elizabeth's eyes to the part Tyrone 
 was really playing, this should have done so. The Earl wrote 
 to Fitzwilliam claiming that in consequence of his persuasive 
 powers, used in the interests of the Queen, the penitent Maguire 
 had disbanded his forces before his eyes, and would make his 
 personal submission to the Lord Deputy before September 15th. 
 This letter, however, was unfortunately followed almost imme- 
 diately by another, which announced with much concern 
 that the traitor Maguire had reassembled his forces, which 
 were now once more under his banner and ripe for any 
 
 ii
 
 162 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 mischief.* The truth was, of course, that acting on the 
 advice of Tyrone Maguire had never disbanded them at all, 
 or at the best had dispersed them to agreed spots from which 
 they could quickly be reassembled again. Bingham always 
 suspiciously friendly to Maguire now wrote to Fitzwilliam 
 that in his opinion Maguire was a comparatively innocent 
 person, and that the real villain of the piece was the Earl of 
 Tyrone. Such a statement coming from such a quarter created 
 no little stir. The Dublin officials pooh-poohed Bingham's 
 accusation as absurd, and in order to silence such injurious 
 suggestions, and to give practical proof of Tyrone's stout 
 loyalty, the Earl and Bagenal were ordered to at once attack 
 Maguire from the north-east in combination with Bingham, 
 who was to work up from the west. Bagenal was the first 
 of the three to move. On October 16th he and Captain Hen- 
 shaw marched out of Newry with the English bands, and were 
 joined on the route by Sir Patrick Barnewall and by Patrick 
 McArt Moyle, the Sheriff of Monaghan, with a considerable 
 force of local kerne. Together the combined forces marched 
 to Dartrey, where they encamped near the Island of Dromcaa. 
 On the day following they captured both this island and the 
 neighbouring island of the Roskie, where they burned Brian 
 McHugh Oge's new house, as well as that of his brother Rory."j" 
 On the 22nd they went on to Clankelly, where they were joined 
 by Connor Roe Maguire (the Government candidate for the Fer- 
 managh chiefry), who was at the moment in great spirits at 
 having just deprived his rebellious half-brother of a herd of 
 cattle. On the 29th the army encamped close to Enniskillen 
 Castle, which was held by a small garrison of Maguire' s men. 
 Maguire himself was obviously nervous and disinclined to fight, 
 for at the approach of the Government forces he burned every- 
 thing that was burnable except the Castle, and retired further 
 west with his main force. 
 
 Neither Tyrone nor Bingham had so far arrived on the scene. 
 The reason for the former's non-appearance was subsequently 
 explained by a spy (Phelim O'Hanlan), who reported to Bing- 
 ham that, throughout the 20th, the Earl had been in close 
 consultation with Hugh Roe, Maguire himself and Neil Garv,J 
 
 * Tyrone to Deputy, Sept. 5th, 1593. 
 
 t Capt. Henshaw lo Deputy, Oct. 18th, 1593. 
 
 j Cal. State Papers, Vol. 172, Notes 1 and 2-23, Carew MSS., 1594-148.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 168 
 
 a story which was afterwards corroborated by Connor Roe, 
 who had it from a different source and communicated what 
 he had learnt to Bingham. Following close on the heels of 
 this consultation, and probably as a consequence of it, came 
 the first of that series of farcical incidents with which the 
 long drawn-out Ulster rebellion was punctuated. Connor Roe, 
 as has just been stated, had taken many cattle from his half- 
 brother, the rebellious Hugh Maguire. As a source of food 
 supply for the Government forces these cattle would have 
 been most welcome, but food for the Government forces they 
 were never destined to become, for on the 24th Connor Roe 
 reported in much distress that his trusted ally, the Earl of 
 Tyrone, had taken all his prey from him, and had disappeared 
 with it into his own country.* This transaction, even on the 
 bare face of it, was farcical enough ; but there is reason to 
 suspect that the comical element extended even further than 
 was apparent on the surface, for it was hinted on all sides 
 that Connor Roe though the Government candidate for the 
 chiefry of Fermanagh, and though brimful of verbal loyalty 
 was trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, 
 and was a party to the whole transaction. 
 
 The loss of this much-needed meat supply left the expedi- 
 tionary force sadly short of food, which was doubtless Tyrone's 
 intention. That slippery intriguer's explanation of the 
 whole occurrence was very characteristic. This is what he 
 wrote to Bagenal, the joint commander of the force with him- 
 self : " Yesterday I sent several Companies into Connor Roe's 
 country, which took 400 or 500 cows, and my force is so dis- 
 persed, every man going away with his spoil, as I know I shall 
 not have them together this two or three days towards Clogher. 
 Perhaps some of Connor Roe's creaghts " (i.e., droves of cattle) 
 " may have been taken this morning by my men, and now that 
 I perceive that he and his goods are so protected I will do 
 him no hurt."f It need scarcely be added that the inter- 
 cepted prey never reappeared. Tyrone himself, with 200 
 horse, 500 Scots J and 100 kerne, put in a warlike appearance 
 on the 26th, but he was obviously nervous, and sat the whole 
 
 * Carew MSS., 1594-148. 
 t Tyrone to Bagenal, Oct. 1593. 
 
 % It must be kept in mind that all these events were prior to Tyrone's rejec- 
 tion of Angus McDonnell's daughter 
 
 II*
 
 164 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 of that night on his horse in fear of a surprise attack by 
 Maguire. 
 
 The military position now was that the Government forces 
 were on the north side of Lough Erne and Maguire on the 
 south, and the difficulty was as to the passage of the Lough, 
 which at this point is more in the nature of a spread-out river 
 than of a lake. As provisions were growing scarce, and as 
 the present position promised an interminable deadlock, 
 Bagenal, on October 2nd, offered Tyrone all the horse and one 
 company of foot, if he would hold the camp while Bagenal 
 himself with the rest of the foot, went round by the Brenny 
 (Cavan), with a view to taking Maguire in flank. To this 
 proposition Tyrone offered every objection possible, putting 
 forward as his excuse that the forces assigned him would not 
 be nearly strong enough to resist Maguire if attacked ;* and 
 there can be no question but that he was very seriously alarmed. 
 So that scheme was abandoned. Bagenal was now in a certain 
 difficulty, as the original plan of campaign had been entirely 
 upset by the unaccountable non-appearance of Bingham, who 
 should have been in touch with Bagenal many days back. 
 Bingham' s conduct, in fact, at this juncture is not easily 
 explained, except on the supposition strongly suggested by 
 evidence from many quarters that he had some secret under- 
 standing with Maguire. On the, 27th he had written to the 
 Deputy from the Abbey of Boyle that he was gradually work- 
 ing up from Connaught with a force of horse mainly Irish 
 but that he was delayed by the non-arrival of the Earl of 
 Thomond, whom he was expecting. However, when the 
 Earl of Thomond did ultimately join him, Bingham could 
 get very little nearer, and on the actual day of the battle was 
 still twelve miles off. 
 
 The battle, when it did at length take place, proved a very 
 tame affair indeed. Bagenal and Tyrone moved down the 
 river to the ford at Cooloyne, near Belleek. On the south 
 side of the Lough was Maguire, strongly entrenched, with 
 1,000 foot and 160 horse, the greater part of whom were Hugh 
 Roe's men. Hugh Roe himself, still posing as a neutral, was 
 ten miles off at Ballyshannon, prudently waiting to see which 
 way the tide of battle would set before definitely declaring 
 himself. The tide of battle, as it turned out, set in very 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 172-30-2.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 105 
 
 decidedly against the fortunes of Maguire. The fight itself 
 was so one-sided as only to be redeemed from absolute comi- 
 cality by the fine gallantry of one man. The infantry were 
 ordered to enter the water and wade across, but they not un- 
 naturally hesitated, as the enemy were fully armed with 
 muskets, and were strongly posted both on the opposite shore 
 and on the many intervening islands. Neither Bagenal nor 
 Tyrone both of whom were very far removed from heroes 
 showed any disposition to lead the way and inspire the men 
 with the confidence of their example. In this crisis Captain 
 Thomas Lee came to the front, and, entering the water alone, 
 waved his sword above his head and made his way slowly 
 across in the face of a heavy, but, luckily, misdirected fire.* 
 Shamed by this heroic example, the soldiers gave a cheer and 
 dashed into the water in pursuit of the gallant Captain. The 
 water proved very deep, and progress was necessarily slow, 
 but, when Lee and his foot soldiers were half-way across, 
 Maguire' s men on the islands left their posts and made hurriedly 
 for the far shore. Here at first they stood in some order 
 with their faces to the enemy ; but on seeing the cavalry, 
 headed* by Bagenal and Tyrone, enter the water in the wake 
 of the infantry, a panic seized them and they broke and 
 scattered in all directions.')' This was the opportunity of 
 the horsemen, who galloped in pursuit and killed 300 of the 
 fugitives. Both the leaders during this pursuit received 
 hurts, Tyrone being wounded in the leg by a spear, and Bagenal 
 being struck on the leg by a battle-axe, which fortunately fell 
 sideways. Tyrone's hurt was the more serious of the two, 
 and he reported that if it had not been for the intervention 
 of Henry Hoveden, he would have lost his life. Neither of 
 the rebel leaders, Hugh Maguire or Brian McHugh Oge, risked 
 their skins in trying to rally their demoralized troops, but 
 " being on horseback and not near the fight, by running away 
 escaped, and never left off running till they came to Ennis- 
 killen, which is almost twenty miles from the place of defeat."J 
 There was a great flourish of trumpets in Government circles 
 over this affair, which took place on October 10th, 1593. Both 
 Bagenal and Tyrone claimed the entire credit for the victory. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 172-3 and 4. 
 t Fitzwilliam to Burleigh, Oct. 1593. 
 j Deputy to Burleigh, Oct. 25th, 1508.
 
 166 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 As a matter of fact, neither of these gentlemen added in any 
 way to the lustre of their names by the parts they played. 
 Tyrone was very nervous throughout, and according to the 
 Deputy, " he made earnest motion to be gone the day before 
 the conflict."* Henry Bagenal was never unduly prominent 
 in the hour of battle. What really happened was that both 
 leaders remained on the safe side of the Lough till they saw 
 the enemy turn tail, and then crossed and joined in the pur- 
 suit. The real hero of the fight was Captain Lee, who proved 
 himself, not only at Belleek, but on many other occasions, a 
 man of exceptional courage. 
 
 On October 18th Bagenal recrossed the Lough by the ford 
 at Lisgool, and, having left Captain Dowdall and 300 men 
 at Connor Roe's house at Castleskeagh (Lisnaskea), which was 
 the fittest place he could find for a fortification, he went on to 
 Clones, where he disbanded his army. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Maguire's garrison still held Enniskillen 
 Castle, and for the reduction of this place, with its forty 
 defenders, tremendous preparations were now set on foot. 
 Two special boats were built, one of eighteen tons and the 
 other four tons, which were launched on the Cavan end of the 
 Lough, and worked down towards the Castle end with pro- 
 visions for Dowdall. They carried two brass falconets, and, 
 on arrival at Enniskillen, the larger boat was sent back to 
 bring up a culverin which was being sent up specially from 
 Dublin. f The preparations, were very protracted and tedious, 
 but on January 25th, 1594, all was at length ready. The cul- 
 verin and the two falconets were placed in position and properly 
 aligned on the Castle. Even then, Captain Dowdall, who 
 was an oldish man, very clearly lacking the happy optimism of 
 youth, had serious doubts as to the behaviour of the guns under 
 trial, for he wrote to the Deputy explaining the situation, 
 and finishing up with the pious hope that " God will bless 
 our cannoneers, who are of sm?ll skill." The hope was evidently 
 realized, for on the ninth day of the siege the garrison, con- 
 sisting of thirty-six men and an equal number of women and 
 children, yielded, and Enniskillen passed into the hands of 
 Captain Dowdall, who left in charge Captain Eckersall, with 
 a ward of thirty men. 
 
 * Deputy to Burleigh, Nov. 16th, 1593. 
 f Fenton to Burleigh, Dec. 1503.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 167 
 
 So far the success of the campaign had rested with the Govern- 
 ment, but none of the men on the spot had any illusions as to 
 the final result, unless the Government executive could be 
 induced to make war preparations on a far more important 
 scale than anything yet attempted. Burleigh was inundated 
 with dispatches urging the great numerical strength of the 
 rebels, the extreme weakness of the few scattered garrisons, 
 and the disaffection of every native chief, great or small, with 
 a solitary exception of Angus McDonnell* of the Glynns. The 
 loyalty of the latter, however, had little political value. Angus 
 himself seldom came to Ulster, and, since the Government 
 had recognized him as a landed proprietor, he had removed 
 his combative forces to Scotland. Randall McNess, his 
 representative in Ulster, had at the utmost sixty men at his 
 disposal, and could have given but little fighting aid to the 
 Government even if called upon. He did his best, however, 
 in other ways. A month after the capture of Enniskillen, 
 Randall came into Newry and made a deposition before Bagenal, 
 Wilbraham and Fenton."j" He said that Angus had sent him 
 because of the goodwill which he had always borne to the two 
 Bagenals, father and son. His information was that there 
 would come over for certain, between Easter and May, 4,000 
 Scots, either to Lough Foyle or Lough Swilly ; that these 
 Scots had been requisitioned jointly by Ineenduv who kept 
 a permanent agent, named McCleary, in Scotland for recruit- 
 ing purposes and by James McSorley, whose mother had 
 been a sister of Shane O'Neil. He added the information 
 that Hugh Maguire had written to Angus, offering him large 
 tracts of land if he would bring to his aid 1,000 Scots ; but 
 Angus had refused for the reasons above given, and because 
 of the undertaking which he had given to Perrot when he 
 granted him the Glynns. J It is more than probable that 
 Angus was open to a counter-offer from the Government, 
 and it is quite certain that the Government could have taken 
 no wiser course, for Angus could unquestionably have landed 
 within a few days a force sufficient to have subdued the whole 
 Province. Elizabeth's prejudices, however, were not yet 
 wholly dead, and Angus's implied offer was disregarded. 
 Later on, after the humiliation of his daughter by Tyrone, the 
 
 * Wilbraham to Burleigh, Sept. 1593. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Feb. 1594. J Cal. State Papers, Vol. 173-64.
 
 168 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 offer took a much more definite shape, but even then was 
 put aside. On this occasion Randall was thanked by Bagenal, 
 and so returned to the Glynns, where he was at once raided in 
 retaliation by James McSorley. At the same time Brian 
 McArt and Neil McHugh (Phelim Bacagh's grandson) regis- 
 tered their disapproval of the whole transaction, by swooping 
 down with 400 men on Carrickfergus, and carrying off the 
 whole of Bagenal' s stud of horses and some 200 cows, which 
 they put across the Bann into Brian Carragh's country.* To 
 prevent any misunderstanding as to the meaning of these 
 unfriendly acts, Brian further threatened that, if Bagenal 
 had any more dealings with Randall or Angus, he would come 
 back and burn the town, a threat which was probably not 
 beyond his power of accomplishment ; for we learn that the 
 turf rampart was much broken down at the time, and the 
 garrison very weak numerically. Captain Egerton, the 
 Constable, wrote representing the position to Fitzwilliam, and 
 urging the necessity for reinforcements if the place was to be 
 held. Fitzwilliam was not responsive, and after a time John 
 Dallway, the Sheriff of Antrim, added his entreaties to those 
 of Egerton,"}" but still without effect. 
 
 The English colony in Antrim was in truth in a position of 
 extreme peril, for they were a mere handful in the midst of 
 enemies, and the whole country was seething with rebellion, 
 which might at any moment take the form of a religious 
 massacre. Fitzwilliam' s failure to send help was due, it 
 must be owned, more to inability than to wickedness, for there 
 were practically no reserves of strength in Ireland on which 
 to draw, and England refused to send more men. Fitz- 
 william made urgent and repeated appeals to Burleigh for fresh 
 supplies of troops with which to relieve the extreme serious- 
 ness of the situation, but the Lord Treasurer in his turn had 
 reasons of his own for bending the eye of suspicion on the 
 bona fides of these applications, and no men were sent. Bur- 
 leigh' s reason for taking up this apparently unfriendly and 
 even unreasonable attitude will presently be understood. 
 
 To the student of Tyrone's rebellion, from the mere military 
 point of view, there is no feature of more outstanding pro- 
 minence throughout, than the inexplicable timidity and hesi- 
 
 * Capt. Egerton to Deputy, March 2nd, 1594. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 176-85-18.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 169 
 
 tation of the three recalcitrant Hughs at this stage of the 
 rebellion. If Tyrone had been blest with even a moderate 
 share of military dash, there can be no question but that he 
 could have swept Ulster from shore to shore. The resisting 
 force was a negligible quantity, incapable through gradual 
 denudation of putting up more than a nominal defence. As 
 at Carricklea, however, so did Tyrone once again bring about 
 his own overthrow by the exercise of too great a caution. In- 
 stead of attacking, he continued to temporize with hollow 
 protestations of loyalty, till such time as the arrival of the 
 Spanish troops promised should have made him strong enough 
 to throw off the mask. He would take no risks, and so in the 
 end he lost all ; for the promised Spanish force never reached 
 Ulster, and, by the time it had reached the south of Ireland, 
 Elizabeth had a Deputy to whom honour and loyalty stood 
 higher than profitable traffic with the Queen's enemies. During 
 the complacent Fitz William's regime the Earl's one object 
 was to gain time. He could look back on such a long and 
 unbroken sequence of tractable Deputies, even within his 
 own recollection, that it does not seem to have occurred to 
 him that he might some day be confronted with a man to 
 whom fighting was more congenial than intrigue. At the 
 present moment, with a conveniently corrupt administration, 
 everything went as he would have wished. A commission 
 consisting of the Lord Chancellor Loftus, Sir Robert Gardiner 
 and Sir Anthony St. Leger, was appointed by the Privy Council 
 to inquire into the causes of the rebellion. The three Govern- 
 ment nominees held their session in Dundalk, and from this 
 base forwarded invitations to Tyrone and Hugh Roe to come 
 in and confer. Maguire, being the most openly declared 
 rebel of the three, was excluded from the invitation. 
 
 Tyrone's attitude on this occasion is interesting, as illus- 
 trating the suspicious workings of his mind, even when dealing 
 with his own suborned confederates. Loftus was notoriously 
 in Tyrone's pay,* and Gardiner strongly suspected of being 
 open to the same charge, and yet the Earl evidently distrusted 
 them both. His first step was to send Henry Hoveden to 
 inform the Commissioners that, much as he and Hugh Roe 
 would like to meet them, they were candidly afraid. With a 
 view to allaying these fears, Captains Thomas Lee and Garrett 
 
 * See William Woollard to Cecil, Oct. 28th, 1595..
 
 170 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Moore were then sent to assure the two chiefs of the complete 
 friendliness of the Commissioners' intentions. It is not clear 
 whether the strong partisanship of Captain Lee for the Tyrone 
 faction preceded this meeting, or whether it arose as the result 
 of the meeting. Garrett Moore and his half-brother William 
 Warren were, of course, old friends of the rebel Earl and of 
 Hugh Roe, wiiose escape from Dublin Castle they had both 
 materially assisted ; but there is nothing prior to the Dundalk 
 conference to connect Captain Lee with Tyrone's political 
 interests. From this date on, however, there was unquestion- 
 ably a very clear understanding between the two, so that it 
 is reasonable to infer that the process of conversion was set in 
 motion during the above-mentioned private conversation 
 between himself, Captain Moore and the Earl. 
 
 Even after the guarantee and undertaking of the two English 
 Captains, Tyrone's suspicions were by no means wholly allayed, 
 and it was not till the third day that he finally agreed to a 
 meeting. Even then he surrounded the situation with safe- 
 guards. He suggested, in the first place, that he should meet 
 Sir Robert Gardiner alone at Sir John Bellew's house at Castle- 
 town. Gardiner was quite agreeable, and kept Ihe appoint- 
 ment, accompanied by half a dozen attendants. Even this 
 clear evidence of friendliness did not entirely disarm the suspi- 
 cions of the timid Earl, who sat for a long while on a hill a 
 mile off guarded by a large company of horsemen ; * but in the 
 end he came to Gardiner. Tyrone spoke English better than 
 Irish, and his command of language, whether in writing or 
 speaking, was remarkable. He started proceedings by an out- 
 burst of weeping, and, when he had to this extent relieved his 
 feelings, he followed it up with an impassioned exposition of his 
 own loyalty, interspersed with bitter attacks on Bagenal. He 
 made a great point of his own valorous behaviour at the Battle 
 of Belleek much questioned by others and finally brought 
 up the matter of Hugh Roe McMahon's execution. As to this, 
 he explained that he, and those with him, feared that Hugh 
 Roe's punishment was but a prelude to other similar trans- 
 actions which might involve themselves, as no chief could 
 possibly be responsible for every insignificant outrage committed 
 by his followers. He added that, with the precedent of Hugh 
 Roe McMahon's execution before them, there was no guarantee 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 173-89-1.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 171 
 
 that any chief might not be seized and executed and his lands 
 confiscated on some frivolous pretext of outrages committed 
 by his men. 
 
 Tyrone then went and fetched Hugh Roe, whom he discreetly 
 left alone with Gardiner, this being the common practice in the 
 case of interviews between native chiefs and Government repre- 
 sentatives, as experience proved that an understanding was 
 generally arrived at quicker when there were no listeners. 
 Unfortunately, however, for the privacy of the negotiations, 
 it turned out that, though Hugh Roe understood English to a 
 limited extent, he could not speak it, and the services of Sir 
 Henry Duke as interpreter had to be called in. Hugh Roe 
 followed very much the same lines as Tyrone, and in the end 
 Gardiner, in a spirit of vicarious hospitality, invited the two 
 Hughs to dine at Sir John Bellew's house. This they agreed to, 
 but failed to keep the appointment. However, after dinner 
 they turned up with a very large company, which included 
 Cormac McBaron, Tirlough McHenry, Sir John O'Dogherty, 
 Art O'Neil and his brother Cormac (Tirlough Luineach's two 
 sons), and Henry Oge, who was Shane's grandson and one of 
 Tyrone's very many sons-in-law. The whole party then 
 started in the most friendly way riding towards Dundalk to- 
 gether, till the outskirts of the town were reached, when the 
 O'Hagans (possibly by previous arrangement) declined to allow 
 Tyrone to go any further. This greatly distressed the Earl, 
 who once more shed tears, and begged that Captain Lee and 
 Garrett Moore might ride back with him part of the way. 
 This they were only too ready to agree to ; but the O'Hagans 
 again interfered, and threatened both Englishmen with their 
 spears. So Tyrone and Hugh Roe rode back alone. 
 
 The astonishing results of this interview, set down in detail 
 by Sir Robert Gardiner, who alone of the three Commissioners 
 had any speech with Tyrone, was a recommendation signed 
 by Loftus, Gardiner and St. Leger, that Maguire should be 
 pardoned ; that Sir Henry Bagenal's commission should be 
 revoked, and that Captain Henshaw, the Sheriff, should be 
 removed from the government of Monaghan ;* from which it is 
 tolerably clear that Tyrone had made the most of his oppor- 
 tunities while alone with Gardiner. The recommendations 
 were not only made, they were acted upon. Maguire was 
 * Commissioners to Privy Council, March 16th, 1594.
 
 172 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 officially pardoned i.e., everything that lie had so far done 
 was wiped clean off the slate. Bagenal was ordered to take 
 no active steps against any of the three Hughs, and Henshaw's 
 charter to make what he could out of the county of Monaghan 
 (for which he had paid Fitzwilliam four hundred pounds) was 
 rescinded. 
 
 Nothing could have been more disastrous than such a policy 
 in a country where an admission of error is always attributed 
 to weakness, and never to generosity. The concession granted 
 gave an immediate stimulus to a rebellion which had so far 
 hung fire rather dismally. Before the month was out, O'Hanlon 
 and Magennis had joined the Earl, and Brian Me Art (who by 
 this time had established himself as Captain of Killultagh), 
 with two large companies of Tyrone's men had raided Lecale, 
 destroyed seven or eight town-lands, and " in the most cruel 
 manner burned men, women and children in the houses."* 
 A fortnight later Tyrone's brother Cormac and Maguire him- 
 self, galvanized into new activity by his reprieve and by the 
 official paralysis of Bagenal and Henshaw, treated Connor Roe's 
 country in exactly the same way. " The whole of Fermanagh 
 is laid desolate and the people fled,""]" that poor man complained 
 to the Deputy, while strongly representing the need for English 
 troops to be sent up to prevent Monaghan and Cavan sharing 
 the same fate. 
 
 The process of reasoning which interprets conciliatory 
 measures into an incentive to rebellion is extremely simple, 
 though difficult of comprehension to the Anglo-Saxon mind. 
 The train of thought is that a Government which makes con- 
 cessions must be weak, otherwise it would not make the con- 
 cessions. On the heels of this follows the idea that because it 
 is weak it ought to be attacked. It is an eminently crude 
 form of reasoning, very little removed above the first law of 
 natural selection, the law which prompts the brute creation to 
 attack the sick and wounded. The main aim of the laws of 
 chivalry, chiefly associated with the Middle Ages, was to 
 combat this primitive impulse, and to establish in its place a 
 code more in tune with the higher tenets of Christianity. 
 Chivalry took its firmest hold in France and England, and in 
 the latter country its survival is still to be found in the code 
 
 * Bagenal to Deputy, March 28th, 1594. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 175-5-15.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 178 
 
 of fair play which governs the actions of all classes alike ; but 
 to many other nationalities the code of chivalry is quite unin- 
 telligible and seems a stupid neglect of opportunity. 
 
 Tyrone himself was by no means free from the general con- 
 tagion. Two thousand of his men, under Cormac McBaron, 
 laid siege to Eckersall in Enniskillen, and, for fear that this 
 large force might run short of provisions, Henry Oge carried 
 off three hundred of Sir Henry Duke's best cattle from Clones 
 for their use. 
 
 In the very serious crisis which the criminal weakness of the 
 Government had now aroused, old Tirlough Luineach came 
 nobly forward with the offer of his house at Strabane for Her 
 Majesty's use, and with the further offer to once more take the 
 field, and to reduce the whole of Ulster to obedience, if the 
 Queen would make him certain concessions and allowances in 
 the way of troops. A few years earlier the task might have 
 been within his compass, but he was now no longer the O'Neil, 
 having in the previous May resigned the title (under some 
 pressure) in favour of Tyrone. He was also getting old and 
 broken in health, and his offer was not taken seriously. Russell 
 seems to have had as pronounced a liking for Tirlough Luineach 
 as had his predecessor, and in the summer of 1595, at the old 
 man's earnest request,* Captain Merriman, an old friend, and 
 one hundred men were sent round to the Foyle in Her Majesty's 
 ship Popinjay, with instructions to bring Tirlough Luineach 
 round by sea to Dublin, there to spend his last remaining days 
 in peace and comfort, f for he was quite past the journey by 
 land. He was very pleased to get the men, for all others had 
 now deserted him, and his son Art was at the moment con- 
 spiring to betray his Castle at Strabane into Tyrone's hands ; 
 but he never made the voyage to Dublin, for, before he could 
 embark, he had set out on his last and longest journey. He died 
 in September of the same year, and was buried at Ardstraw 
 on the River Derg. He left a name unstained by a single 
 recorded act of treachery or a single broken promise. He was 
 beyond doubt a good warrior when sufficiently aroused to 
 activity, but his love of wine paralysed both his energies and 
 his ambitions, and left him an easy prey to his worthless 
 relations. There have been many worse men. 
 
 * Tirlough Luineach to Deputy, March 31st, 1595. 
 f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 180-53.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Severe straits of the Enniskillen garrison Sir Henry Duke dispatched with a 
 relief force His defeat by Cormac McBaron Fitzwilliam recalled His 
 indignation at the charges levelled against him Difficult position of the 
 Queen's Deputies Sidney's money losses Mount joy's losses Reasons 
 for Fitzwilliam' s corrupt dealings Sir William Russell arrives as Deputy- 
 Tyrone visits him in Dublin Compact entered into with Tyrone Tyrone's 
 character His failure to carry out his side of the agreement Russell's 
 energy His relief of Enniskillen Miserable plight of the English garrisons 
 in Ulster Desertion of the Carrickfergus garrison The Bishop of Down 
 and Connor saves the situation Military incapacity of the rebel leaders 
 Their internal quarrels Owen Roe and Brian M^Art Murder of Ever 
 McRory Magennis The motives at the back of it Capture of the Black- 
 water Fort by Art McBaron Suspicious conduct of the garrison Trial 
 by court-martial Acquittal of the officers Tyrone openly proclaims 
 himself a rebel He destroys the Blackwater Bridge and burns the Farney 
 churches. 
 
 THE chief matter of military interest during the summer 
 of 1594 was the siege of Enniskillen, which dragged on 
 month after month. Its capture from the rebels had been a 
 momentous affair. Its recapture by them was even more so. 
 By July the number of the besieging force had reached three 
 thousand. Within the walls the original number of the garrison 
 had been much reduced by sickness, and provisions were at so 
 low an ebb that it w r as generally recognized that the Castle 
 must either be very speedily revictualled or lost. The work 
 of relief was entrusted to Sir Henry Duke and Sir Edward 
 Herbert. They both protested to the Deputy that the force 
 at their disposal (six hundred foot and forty-six horse) was 
 quite insufficient for the purpose ; but their representations 
 were not favourably received, and, as time was a factor of the 
 very first importance, the attempt was made. It proved a 
 most calamitous affair. The relieving force was attacked by a 
 large body of Scots under Cormac McBaron, and completely 
 defeated. Fifty-six were killed and sixty-nine wounded, and 
 all the provisions destined for Enniskillen fell into the hands 
 of the rebels.* 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 175-47-1. 
 174
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 175 
 
 This disastrous affair was practically the last act of Fitz- 
 william's administration. Where every enterprise undertaken 
 ended in loss to the Queen and profit to the rebels, it became 
 clear to those at home that something must be wrong, and the 
 Deputy was recalled. How very wrong things really were 
 did not transpire till later, when Kyffin's investigations brought 
 to light, among other things, the astounding fact that the 
 Queen's English Army in Ireland existed only on paper. The 
 muskets sent over for its armament were sold to the rebels, 
 while the funds sent over for its pay were divided up between 
 the Master of the Musters and the Captains of Companies, the 
 soldiers meanwhile dying like flies of starvation and want of 
 clothing in the public highways. 
 
 The most curious fact in connection with Fitzwilliam's recall 
 is that he was nominally brought home because of his supposed 
 hostility to Tyrone. Elizabeth, in a long letter to the new 
 Deputy, Sir William Russell, distinctly makes this statement,* 
 putting forward as her justification for the removal of his pre- 
 decessor his alleged bias and that of Sir Henry Bagenal against 
 the Earl. The Earl, of course, was not yet technically a rebel ; 
 and, though it was a matter of common knowledge all over 
 Ireland that he was the wire-puller at the back of the whole rebel 
 movement, Elizabeth still clung to the belief that a man on 
 whom she had expended so much money and care, must be on 
 a higher level of loyalty than his enemies would have her 
 believe. Tyrone, for his part, persistently affirmed that all the 
 major misdeeds attributed to him were the fruit of misrepre- 
 sentation, and that his admittedly equivocal attitude on one 
 or two notable occasions had been forced upon him by the fixed 
 hostility of Fitzwilliam and Bagenal. Elizabeth was only too 
 ready to believe all this plausible stuff, to which Fitzwilliam's 
 notorious malpractices in Monaghan and Fermanagh gave some 
 colour, and her inclination in the matter was strongly backed 
 by the representations of Fenton, Loftus and Gardiner, and 
 other members of the Tyrone faction in Dublin. 
 
 So Fitzwilliam went back to England to be arraigned in 
 course of time for his many misdeeds, as to which he still con- 
 tinued to urge his innocence. " Sir," he wrote to Cecil, " you will 
 find me an honest man, and void of all the detestable suggestions 
 made against me."f 
 
 * Carew MSS., 1504-188 f Fitzwilliam to Cecil, Sept. 13th, 1594.
 
 1T6 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Before wholly condemning this fat, gouty old man, it must 
 be borne in mind that he was to a great extent the victim of the 
 demoralizing system under which the Irish Deputies were 
 paid for their services. The strictly honest ones came away 
 poorer men than they went. " Three times," Sir Henry Sidney 
 had written to Walsingham, " Her Majesty hath sent me her 
 Deputy into Ireland. I returned from each of these three 
 deputations three thousand pounds poorer than I went." 
 These losses of Sidney's were due, on one occasion at any rate, 
 to special misfortune, for in 1566 the ship which was bringing 
 over his plate and most of his worldly possessions went to the 
 bottom in a storm ; but, taking them all round, they repre- 
 sented the certain reward of straight dealing in Ireland. Mount- 
 joy, the only other honest Elizabethan Deputy if we except 
 Lord Burgh complained that he was between 5,000 and 6,000 
 in debt by the end of 1602 i.e., after less than three years of 
 office. He was allowed 5,000 a year, and spent 2,000 a year 
 of his own money in addition. 
 
 Fitzwilliam himself, we are told, lost 2,000 during his first 
 experience of Dublin office life, a catastrophe which so dis- 
 gusted him with the paths of honesty that he determined at his 
 next opportunity to steer a widely different course. To this 
 resolve may be traced all the strange vagaries of his later 
 administration. He was underpaid, and expected by a nig- 
 gardly Treasury to squeeze the balance of his salary out of 
 the country he governed. The insanity of such a system is 
 self-evident. " Pay yourself," Elizabeth suggested to her 
 Deputies, " but don't pay yourself too much." Angels might 
 respond to such a test, but not mere men. Fitzwilliam paid 
 himself, and, having once taken his farewell of honest dealing, 
 saw no particular reason for adopting half -measures. During 
 his second term of office he was reported to have cleared 
 10,000, a by no means impossible figure when we consider 
 the methods adopted. " He was not clean-handed from 
 excesses and other impositions, which were his greatest faults," 
 says the " Book of Howth," " and that was a pity, for he was 
 a good man saving for that."* 
 
 On August llth the new Deputy, Sir William Russell, the 
 youngest son of the Earl of Bedford, arrived to take up the 
 very tangled reins of Government. Tyrone, it need scarcely 
 
 * " Book of Howth," P- 202.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 177 
 
 be said, at once went up to Dublin to pay his respects, and, 
 incidentally, to try and arrive at some such comfortable under- 
 standing as he had already established with the majority of the 
 Privy Council. Russell, however, had arrived armed with some 
 of the proverbial enthusiasm of the new broom, and proved by 
 no means the easy prey that the Earl had anticipated. 
 
 Tyrone entered the room on his knees and presented a most 
 beautifully-worded and appealing submission, which, as a 
 work of art, was accorded proper respect, but which, as a 
 promise of things to come, made little impression. Russell 
 was no fool. He assessed Tyrone's pathetic protestations at 
 their true value, and, had he followed his own judgment, he 
 would then and there have proclaimed the Earl rebel and 
 traitor. Fenton, however, and, in fact, the entire Privy Council 
 were as may easily be imagined very strongly opposed to 
 this course, recommending in preference those temporizing 
 measures which are ever so dear to the heart of the true politi- 
 cian.* Russell finally yielded to what he considered their 
 greater experience of the country. It was arranged that 
 Tyrone was to return in peace to Ulster, and to send his eldest 
 legitimate son, Hugh Baron of Dungannon, to be educated at 
 his own expense at Dublin University, the building of which 
 had just been completed. He was also to take immediate steps 
 to re-embark and send back to Scotland the two large bands 
 of Highlanders which Ineenduv and James McSorley had 
 recently imported (in fulfilment of Angus McDonnell's pre- 
 diction). He was further to induce Hugh Roe to send away all 
 his previously-hired Scots, and they were both to refrain from 
 any further molestation of Her Majesty's subjects. f To all 
 these terms Tyrone agreed, with all the readiness of one to 
 whom promises were merely a convenient form of words. 
 
 The Queen was very greatly displeased with Russell for 
 having allowed the Earl to go free, after having been securely 
 within his grasp. Obstinate as her belief may have been in 
 the ultimate regeneration of the English-reared O'Neil, she 
 was too true a Tudor to leave that to chance which the walls 
 of the Tower would have made sure of. Russell excused him- 
 self on the grounds given above. He himself, he pleaded, 
 was new to the situation, and those who had experience of the 
 
 * Fynes Moryson, Part II., Chapter II 
 | Carew MSS., Aug. 1594. 
 
 12
 
 178 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 country had unanimously recommended the course which he 
 had adopted. 
 
 It is not always easy, at this period of his career, to read 
 the Earl of Tyrone aright, so that it is not to be wondered at 
 that Elizabeth herself was puzzled. At times he appears as 
 a crafty and unscrupulous schemer, lost to all sense of honour, 
 and at others as a mere nonentity a feeble creature used as 
 a cat's-paw by firmer minds than his. He was probably a 
 combination of the two. There is no doubt that he was 
 markedly deficient in the firmness of character usually asso- 
 ciated with successful leaders of revolutions. In all the more 
 serious crises of his career we find him vacillating weakly 
 between two alternative courses. The O'Hagans would appear 
 to have had little respect for, and no fear of, him. They 
 regarded him rather as a kind of sacred effigy the focus- 
 point of their rude religious cult ; but they ordered him about 
 as they chose, and were completely out of his control.* In 
 spite of the ridicule with which Robert Earl of Essex regarded 
 his religious pose, there seems very little doubt that, at this 
 period of his career, superstition played a considerable part 
 in the moulding of his plans. In a letter which Russell wrote 
 to Burleigh in November, 1594, he describes him as being 
 wholly governed by Jesuits and seminary priests. Of these, 
 the most influential at the moment was an English Jesuit of 
 the name of Francis Mountfort. Tyrone appears to have 
 discussed with this man the question of sending the Baron of 
 Dungannon to Dublin University, and there is the possibility 
 that the idea may not have been without its attractions for a 
 man who, in his more exuberant moments, aimed at being king 
 of Ireland ; but Mountfort peremptorily vetoed it. So here 
 was the death of the Earl's first promise. The second promise 
 was probably in any case beyond his powers of accomplishment. 
 There is no instance on record of his having directed any of his 
 retainers into paths which they did not wish to follow, or of 
 his having punished any of them for exceeding his commands. 
 Donough O'Hagan, it is true, was seen in 1596 lying in irons 
 in Dungannon Castle, from which it might be prima Jade 
 inferred that Tyrone had imprisoned him there ; but there is 
 a strong probability that his judge and jury, on this occasion, 
 
 * The O'Hagans were a sept who claimed royal descent and were, in any cane, 
 of a lineage as old as the O'Neils.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 179 
 
 had been his own sept and not the Earl. In view of the 
 strained relations existing at the moment between Tyrone 
 and the Scots, it is highly improbable that he even went 
 through the farce of attempting to turn them back ; but in 
 any event they did not go. Three thousand were reported 
 to have landed in Inishowen to the order of Ineenduv, and 
 three thousand in the Route for James McSorley.* These 
 figures were no doubt greatly exaggerated, but that the number 
 actually landed was considerable is beyond doubt, as is also the 
 fact that the Route contingent brought with them five hundred 
 pounds' worth of powder and shot, which had been shipped 
 from Glasgow for the use of the Earl by one James Stewart.^ 
 Tyrone's excuse to the Deputy for the non-fulfilment of his 
 pledge was a plain plea of impotence, | which was no doubt 
 the true explanation, though it by no means follows that he 
 would have exercised the power, even had it been his. Russell 
 had been wise enough not to build too much on the fulfilment 
 of the fickle Earl's promises, and, from the moment of his taking 
 over office, he commenced vigorous preparations for the relief 
 of the beleaguered Enniskillen garrison. The energy of his 
 actions must have come as a surprise to the rebel chiefs, and 
 they certainly offered proof of his initial desire to serve his 
 Queen well and truly. He had landed on August llth, and 
 within ten days of that date he had set out from Dublin with 
 the relieving force. On August 30th the Castle was reached, 
 and the garrison of fifteen, now reduced to eating cats and 
 rats, was rescued from a position which could hardly have 
 been longer endured, and a new garrison was properly provi- 
 sioned and left in charge. Of this new garrison not one was 
 destined to leave Enniskillen alive. 
 
 If ever there was a moment when Tyrone should have struck 
 it was during the autumn of 1594. He had now some six 
 thousand or seven thousand good troops at his disposal, with 
 an abundance of arms and ammunition. The Government 
 forces, on the other hand, were miserably depleted, and the 
 gaps had been filled up with Irish kerne, who were quite un- 
 reliable in emergency. Most of the minor Ulster strongholds 
 
 * Tyrone to Privy Council, July 25th, 1594. See also Laurence Esmond 
 to Deputy, July 29th, 1594. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 178-42. 
 
 J Tyrone to Deputy, Sept. llth, 1594. 
 
 12*
 
 180 ELIZABETHAN ULStER 
 
 were in the rebel hands. The only places which were still pre' 
 cariously held for the Queen were Newry, Monaghan, the Black> 
 water Fort, Enniskillen and Carrickfergus, and the last-named 
 which was still by far the most important military station 
 in Ulster, though dangerously isolated and remote could, 
 by the admission of its Mayor, Michael Savage, have made no 
 effective resistance against a determined attack.* Luckily 
 for the inmates no such attack was made. In August James 
 McSorley, who had by now dispossessed McQuillin of every 
 acre he had ever owned in the Route, came down with one 
 thousand of his newly-imported Scots, and carried off all their 
 cattle, the garrison being too weak even to attempt a rescue. 
 The loss of their food supply was the last straw that broke 
 down the patience of the long-suffering garrison. They had 
 received no pay for five years, and now their sole means of sub- 
 sistence had been carried off under their very noses, and they 
 themselves left to starve. They took up their arms and left 
 the town in a body, but were afterwards persuaded to return 
 by John Charden, Bishop of Down and Connor, who met them 
 near Kilroot on their way to Larne, and supplied their imme- 
 diate wants with some of his own cattle. Except for this one 
 unimportant foraging enterprise, the autumn of 1594 was 
 allowed to pass without any active movement being attempted 
 by Tyrone or any of his allies. 
 
 The truth was that none of the rebel leaders, with the excep- 
 tion of Maguire, had any military capacity, or even a know- 
 ledge of the first principles of warfare, in the sense of concerted 
 movements with a distinct strategical aim. Their ideas were 
 limited to the conduct of predatory raids, which may have been 
 satisfactory from the point of view of commissariat or revenge, 
 but which had no military value. 
 
 Another difficulty in the way of concerted and systematized 
 movements was the impossibility of sustaining harmony for 
 any length of time between the rebel leaders, who almost 
 invariably quarrelled among themselves before they came 
 within reach of the enemy. The first Ulster notability to 
 realize that the art of war and the aims of war extended beyond 
 mere pillage and massacre, was the famous Owen Roe O'Neil, 
 but then he had learned in a foreign school. 
 
 Owen Roe was half-brother to Brian McArt, and was con- 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol 175-35-14.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 181 
 
 sequently a nephew of the Earl of Tyrone a rather remark- 
 able relationship when we consider that Tyrone was born in 
 the forties of the sixteenth century, and that Owen Roe was 
 commander-in-chief of the Irish forces in the forties of the 
 seventeenth century. The seventeenth-century nephew, how- 
 ever, was a very different man to the sixteenth-century uncle, 
 though the two had this in common, that they were both 
 singularly free from the common blood-thirst of their associates. 
 Tyrone was never a butcher. He killed without scruple or 
 hesitation where his personal safety or his political aims 
 demanded it, but he never killed for the mere sake of killing. 
 He killed Ever McRory Magennis, the Captain of Kilwarlin. 
 in this very autumn of 1594. The act was one of sheer murde 
 judged by conventional standards, and for some little time 
 Tyrone's motive for what on the surface seemed an unprovoked 
 outrage, remained a matter of doubt. Bagenal wrote to Bur- 
 leigh that Ever had been murdered because " he had certain 
 matters to aver against Tyrone face to face " ;* but this was 
 not the real truth. The true facts of the case were communi- 
 cated by William Lane to Cecil in a letter dated July 18th, 
 1597. " Many minor chiefs," he wrote, " are ready to sur- 
 render their lands and to receive them again in perpetuity from 
 Her Majesty, paying so much rent, but all such offers are 
 suppressed by the officials (local) for their own ends. For now 
 they (and others) receive many cows a year to countenance the 
 chiefs' holdings, whereas in the other case only Her Majesty 
 would receive rent. This course would do more than any 
 other to settle the country ; therefore Tyrone dreads it more 
 than anything else. He killed Ever McMahon, Captain of 
 Killultagh, for making such an offer.""}" 
 
 Lane was at fault as to the names, but right as to the cir- 
 cumstances. No McMahon was ever Captain of Killultagh, 
 which was far removed from the McMahon country. The 
 Captain of Killultagh was Cormac McBrian, who was also 
 murdered (by Brian Me Art), but for no more subtle political 
 reason than that Brian, being landless himself and without 
 any fixed habitat, wanted Killultagh as a base from which 
 to terrorize Kilwarlin, Dufferin and McCartan's country to the 
 west. This matter, however, has no bearing on the present 
 
 * Bagenal to Burlcigh, Sept. 27th, 1594. 
 | William Lane to Cecil, July 18th, 1597.
 
 182 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 case. The man to whom Lane intends to refer, as having been 
 killed by Tyrone,, was Ever McRory Magennis, Captain of 
 Kilwarlin, and he was killed because he had made an offer to 
 surrender Kilwarlin* (Lower Iveagh) and receive it again from 
 the Queen. 
 
 In January the rebellion began to give signs of increased 
 activity. Maguire opened the year well by capturing the 
 big 18-ton boat on Loch Erne a serious loss to the garrison. 
 Worse misfortunes were to follow. On February 16th Art 
 McBaron and Art Bradagh O'Hagan (Tyrone's principal military 
 leader) achieved the capture of the Blackwater Fort. This 
 was the most important gain the rebels had yet been able to 
 register, for the position was one of supreme importance, and 
 one that had been held without break throughout the twenty 
 years that had elapsed since its first establishment by Essex. 
 The two victorious Arts behaved with remarkable moderation 
 to the garrison, who were allowed to go their ways with whole 
 skins a circumstance so rare in sixteenth-century warfare as 
 to give rise to much comment and inquiry. The capture of this 
 fort, which was the main gateway into the county of Tyrone, 
 and its occupation by the O'Hagans, decided the timid Ear] 
 to at last declare himself openly on the side of the rebels. On 
 receipt of the glad news, he galloped with all speed to the river, 
 and personally supervised the demolition of the hated bridge, 
 which opened his territory to inquisitive interference from the 
 Pale. 
 
 The Queen was naturally very much upset by the loss of the 
 Blackwater, and highly suspicious of the rather curious circum- 
 stances surrounding its transfer into rebel hands. Both Captain 
 Keyes who had been absent on the occasion and his second 
 in command, Lieutenant Cornwall, were imprisoned and tried 
 by court-martial on the charge of having betrayed the fort to 
 the rebels for their own personal ends. The evidence of all the 
 surviving members of the garrison was taken, "j" but as all were 
 presumably equally implicated, nothing was proved ; and the 
 two officers were acquitted by a court whose members foresaw 
 the possibility that they themselves might some day be in the 
 dock on a similar charge. 
 
 Tyrone, having now openly declared himself on the side of 
 
 * See also Bagenal to Burleigh as above. 
 
 t See deposition of Henry Marsh, Cal. State Papers, Vol. 178-53.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 18t 
 
 Maguire, was anxious to lose no time in proving to his comrades 
 in rebellion how thoroughly he had turned his coat. He 
 started proceedings by personally conducting a raid against 
 Cavan, which he burned, and followed this up by burning all 
 the churches in Farney the property of the Earl of Essex 
 not so much from religious zeal as because the churches, being 
 built of stone, were easily convertible into fortresses in war-time.
 
 Distress of Elizabeth at Tyrone's open rebellion Precarious condition of the 
 English garrisons in Ireland Russell's military capacity -Dispatch of 
 Sir John Norris with reinforcements Russell made subordinate to Norris 
 His magnanimous spirit Capture of Enniskillen by the rebels Morris's 
 army reaches Newry The relief of Monaghan Relief column harassed 
 by Tyrone Casualties on both sides Tyrone publicly proclaimed traitor 
 Norris reaches the Blackwater Panic of Tyrone He burns Dunganiion 
 Castle Tyrone burns the Newry Hour-mills Capture of Magennis's cattle 
 Government force attacked in the Moycrie Pass Narrow escape of 
 Russell. 
 
 THE definite association of Tyrone with the Ulster rebellion 
 came as a surprise to no one in Ireland, where it had 
 long been known that the Earl was the semi-concealed wire- 
 puller at the back of the movement. A pretence of belief in 
 his loyalty had been kept up for business reasons, but the real 
 position had been public property for years. In England, 
 however, it was otherwise. The persistent guarantees by the 
 Privy Council of the Earl's basic loyalty had fallen happily 
 in line with the Queen's eternal hopes that the boy she had 
 befriended would in spite of appearances to the contrary 
 in the end prove himself worthy of her confidence. These hopes 
 were now definitely shattered, and the disillusioned Queen 
 became no less anxious than was Burleigh to bring her ungrateful 
 fosterling to justice. 
 
 Repeated representations had been made to Burleigh for 
 some time past, both by Fitzwilliam and Russell, as to the 
 gravity of the situation developing in Ulster, and more particu- 
 larly as to the desperate condition of the few slender garrisons 
 that still held out. The Queen's belated belief in Tyrone's 
 loyalty had hitherto, to a certain extent, discounted these 
 warnings, but, after the Blackwater affair, it was impossible for 
 those in England any longer to doubt their true value. The 
 English Council became keenly alive to the urgent need for 
 energetic action. Russell's last word had been that nothing 
 could save Ulster except the immediate embarkation of a strong 
 
 184
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 185 
 
 force under a commander of proved capacity. He little guessed 
 at the time he put forward this recommendation of the com- 
 plications he was inviting. Burleigh fell in with the suggestion 
 all the more readily from the fact that he himself had long been 
 contemplating some such step. He had already determined 
 not to send any more driblets of men over to Ireland, having a 
 strong suspicion, and, indeed, something more than a suspicion, 
 that the depletion of the garrisons in that country was not wholly 
 due to military causes. There happened to be a force very suit- 
 able for the Irish undertaking engaged at the time in Brittany, 
 under the command of Sir John Norris, and Burleigh's final 
 decision, on receipt of Russell's recommendation, was to wait 
 till that force was disengaged, and then to send it over to Ire- 
 land, as an integral unit, under its present commander. Bur- 
 leigh's decision, though it was practically in accord with Russell's 
 own request, and though it certainly offered a partial solution 
 of the problem of Irish reinforcements, was destined to provoke 
 many more complications than it solved. Russell, who was 
 himself a man of considerable military experience, and who bore 
 ihe reputation of having displayed remarkable personal 
 prowess in the Netherlands wars, had neither desired nor anti- 
 cipated that the capable commander he had applied for should 
 be made independent of his own authority. Nor had he anti- 
 cipated that the man selected would be Sir John Norris, who was 
 an old enemy of his own in other fields. Even so, however, the 
 situation might have been productive of good, had Burleigh 
 not adopted the unprecedented course of placing Norris in 
 supreme command of the army of Ulster, to the obliteration 
 of Russell. It was a humiliation which Russell, so far, had not 
 deserved, and it must be recorded to his undying credit that he 
 accepted the affront (for it was nothing less) in a spirit of un- 
 shaken loyalty to his Queen. A man of less generous disposi- 
 tion might have sulked at home and taken no further interest 
 in the suppression of the rebellion. Russell, however, played a 
 very different part. No sooner had Norris's army landed than 
 he met the new Commander-in-Chief in a spirit of friendly 
 cordiality, accompanied him to Newry, and for some weeks 
 afterwards lent the encouragement of his presence to all the 
 movements of the camp. 
 
 Contrary to general expectation, the delay in the dispatch 
 of reinforcements had only resulted in the loss to the Govern-
 
 186 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 ment of one more stronghold. This was Enniskillen. The loss 
 of the big boat had, in point of fact, already sounded the knell 
 of this place, and early in May, 1595, the garrison now reduced 
 by absolute famine to fourteen surrendered to Cormac 
 McBaron. The Four Masters say that the fourteen were honour- 
 ably pardoned, but Russell, on the other hand, states distinctly, 
 in two separate letters, that they were all put to the sword.* 
 Newry, Monaghan and Carrickfergus now alone remained, and 
 the position of the last two was precarious in the extreme. 
 Monaghan lacked for food and Carrickfergus for defences. 
 Once again, however, the hopeless lack of co-ordination among 
 the rebels prevented them from taking advantage of their 
 opportunities, and the relieving force was allowed to arrive 
 with Monaghan and Carrickfergus still uncaptured. 
 
 Norris landed at Waterford early in May just prior, in fact, 
 to the fall of Enniskillen and made his way up, as quickly 
 as circumstances would allow, to Dublin, and from thence to 
 Newry, accompanied as has already been stated by the Lord 
 Deputy. The army consisted of 2,200 foot, under the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief's brother, Sir Henry Norris, and 500 horse, 
 under Sir Edward Yorke. It was agreed on all sides that by 
 far the most pressing matter at the moment was the relief of 
 Monaghan, where Captain Dowdall was reported to be in 
 absolute extremities. Accordingly, on May 25th the army set 
 out from Newry for that place, accompanied by a herd of 1,000 
 cattle, driven by Irish kerne. 
 
 Even before the walls of Newry were out of sight, Tyrone 
 made demonstrations on both flanks of the relieving column 
 with an army which Bagenal, who accompanied the English 
 force, generously estimated at 14,000, j" but which in reality 
 numbered less than a quarter of that figure. Tyrone himself 
 was very conspicuous throughout, being surrounded by a special 
 body of 300 personal guards in scarlet and yellow uniforms, J 
 with whom he remained at a prudent distance directing opera- 
 tions. His army harassed the English up to the very gates of 
 Monaghan, but he was unable to prevent the relieving and 
 revictualling of the garrison, and the successful return of Norris' s 
 column to Newry. 
 
 * Russell to Cecil, May 23rd and May 24th, 1595. 
 t Fenton to Buckhurst, July 30th, 1595. 
 
 j Tyrone's colours were red and yellow. See Cal. State Papers, James-1625 
 -170.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 187 
 
 Throughout the return, as in the advance, Tyrone's force 
 hung on the flanks of the Government column, and kept up so 
 boisterous a fusillade that we are told that no less than fourteen 
 barrels of powder were consumed in the effort,* but finally 
 Newry and the welcome shelter of its walls was reached, and a 
 count was made of the casualties. These, according to the 
 returns furnished, amounted to 31 killed and 109 wounded, but 
 it was freely rumoured that the actual losses were higher, "j" but 
 from motives which it is not easy to understand were con- 
 cealed. A man named Pat Donnelly, who was with Tyrone's 
 force, but who afterwards turned spy, estimated the numbers 
 of the Earl's army at 3,000 foot and 800 horse. The Irish casual- 
 ties, he said, coming and going, amounted to 300, and included 
 Tirlough Luineach's son Cormac and Art Bradagh O'Hagan, 
 both of whom had been killed. The last two statements, 
 however, proved to be pure fiction, invented for the purpose of 
 pleasing his audience. 
 
 The prominent part played by Tyrone in the attack on Norris's 
 column was at once a public declaration of the side he was on 
 and an open defiance of the Government, and there was no longer 
 any hesitation as to the course which the situation demanded. 
 Accordingly, on June 23rd he was officially proclaimed a traitor, 
 and notices to this effect, in both English and Irish, were posted 
 in Newry market-place. The rather curious reason assigned 
 for this proclamation was that Tyrone had hanged Hugh 
 McShane, the object being, of course, to detach the Donnelly s 
 and other adherents of the Shane faction from the standard of 
 the Earl ; but, as the event in question had taken place six 
 years before the proclamation, it is hardly likely that so quick- 
 witted a people as the Irish were for a moment deceived. The 
 truth, of course, was that, from the moment of Tyrone's first 
 interview with Russell, he had realized that the old game of 
 pretended loyalty, which he so successfully carried on for many 
 years, was at an end, and that nothing remained for him but 
 to make open cause with Maguire. 
 
 At the end of June Norris, having garrisoned Armagh Great 
 Church and turned it into a temporary store-house for passing 
 troops, pushed on to the Blackwater, the Deputy still accom- 
 panying the force. The river was found in full flood and 
 quite impassable, and on the far bank was the Earl with the 
 * Carew MSS., 1595-154. f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 180-5-6.
 
 188 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 whole of his considerable force. According to a contemporary 
 *' Journal of the Deputy's Northern Journey," a great many 
 railing speeches were exchanged across the water, but no shots,* 
 each party being anxious to conserve its powder for more im- 
 portant occasions. 
 
 The sight of Norris's army, even on the far side of the flooded 
 river, seems to have filled the newly-declared rebel with a quite 
 unreasonable terror. In the panic which possessed him he 
 burned all the houses on the western side of the river, including 
 those of the McCanns, O'Hagans and O' Quins, and then as 
 though to show his impartiality in the matter burned his own 
 castle at Dungannon"j" with all its new London appurtenances, 
 and laid the smouldering ruins flat with the ground. Not con- 
 tent with this, he sent frantic messages north and west to Hugh 
 Roe, O'Cahan and Tirlough Luineach, announcing that all was 
 lost, and bidding them burn all their Castles without a mo- 
 ment's delay. The two first-named chiefs in the same spirit 
 of panic carried out his orders literally, but Tirlough Luineach 
 was at his last gasp and cared for none of these things. 
 
 Even when the short summer flood had subsided, Norris made 
 no attempt to push forward beyond the Blackwater, and Tyrone 
 in an excess of spleen at having needlessly destroyed so much 
 of his own property made an effort to level things up, to a cer- 
 tain extent, by sweeping round behind the Government forces 
 with 800 horse and burning Bagenal's flour mills at Newry. 
 Having relieved his mind to this extent, he next rounded up 
 1,500 of Sir Hugh Magennis's cattle in Iveagh, which he sent 
 home under escort, while he himself turned south in search of 
 fresh opportunities for punishing those who (like Magennis) had 
 not yet joined him, and for generally annoying the English 
 army. 
 
 The burning of the Newry flour mills did not come altogether 
 as a surprise. Norris had learned through his spies of Tyrone's 
 intention, and in the forlorn hope that he might prevent the 
 catastrophe, or at any rate catch Tyrone in the act, he hurried 
 his army back by the shortest cut to Newry, which was reached 
 on July 10th. By that time, however, the smouldering ruins 
 
 * Carew MSS., 1595-158. 
 
 t Russell to Burleigh, July 4th, 1595. Russell to Privy Council, July 20th , 
 1595. 
 
 $ Carew MSS., 1595-158,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 189 
 
 of the mills were the only trace left of the mobile Earl, and, after 
 two days spent in gloomily reviewing the damage and reckoning 
 up the cost of reconstruction, the army continued its southward 
 march to Dundalk. 
 
 This stage of the journey very nearly resulted in a serious 
 disaster to the English, and without doubt would have done so, 
 had Tyrone and his light horse been possessed of even a moderate 
 degree of daring. A very carefully prepared ambush was laid 
 in the narrowest part of the dangerous Moyerie Pass between 
 Newry and Dundalk, into which the English advance party, 
 which included Russell himself, marched without a suspicion 
 of its presence. The Irish luckily failed to take proper 
 advantage of this stroke of good fortune, for, after firing a single 
 volley which only succeeded in hitting one man, Sir Oghie 
 O'Hanlon, in the foot they flung away their arms and made off 
 into the bogs and woods* where pursuit was impossible. The 
 main body, hearing the firing, hurried up and made an attempt 
 at pursuit, but the light-footed Irish knew the ground and easily 
 out-distanced their pursuers. " If such a running away," the 
 Journalist of the occurrence writes, " had been in France or 
 Flanders, either of the French King's army or the King of Spain, 
 the mightier of them could not have shown themselves again 
 in the field within one year following.""!" 
 
 -* Cal. State Papers, Vol. 181-41. f Carew MSS., 1595-158.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Official corruption in Ireland Norris's unaccountable inaction Russell's 
 attempts to import a Scotch army Opposition of Fenton Offer of assist- 
 ance from Angus and Donald Gorm Reluctance of the officials to end 
 the war Fenton's arguments against the use of Scots The Queen per- 
 suaded Scotch army lands on the Copeland Islands Angus' s renewed 
 offers of service Reluctant refusal of Russell Peace negotiations opened 
 with Tyrone Norris, Fenton and Bourchier appointed commissioners 
 Three months' truce Release of Randall McSorley Tyrone's letters to 
 Spain Tyrone submits his terms The Queen's amendments Seizure of 
 Monaghan by Cormac McBaron Treachery of Patrick McArt Moyle 
 Tyrone's attempts on Dundrum and Strangford Wallop and Gardiner 
 interview Tyrone Grievances of the chiefs Queen's proclamation of 
 pardon Disagreement between Tyrone and Hugh Roe Final terms 
 agreed with Tyrone Russell's sarcastic comments Tyrone and Magennis's 
 daughter on the Bann Don Alonzo de Cobos arrives in Donegal Tyrone 
 hurries to meet him Gathering at Lifford. 
 
 FOR so renowned a commander, Norris's first effort in 
 the field had been singularly barren of results. He 
 himself following in the traditional footsteps of the un- 
 successful tried to find excuses for his failure in the short- 
 comings of others. " While those," he wrote to Burleigh, 
 " who have the chiefest disposition of things, care not how long 
 the war lasts so they may make their profit, you can look for 
 no other success than an unprofitable expense and a lasting 
 rebellion." Whether this thrust was aimed at Russell himself 
 or at the Privy Council is not clear. The probability is that it 
 was aimed at Russell, between whom and the military com- 
 mander the relations were already becoming very strained. It 
 is by no means clear, however, that as far as the Deputy was 
 concerned the imputation was at that time merited. On the 
 contrary, the evidence is in favour of Russell's intentions, at 
 any rate during the first year of his administration, having been 
 honest. All his first acts tend to confirm this view, but that 
 later on he deteriorated very rapidly is no less certain. Fitz- 
 william had left in Ireland a state of society in which every 
 stratum was steeped through and through with corruption and 
 greed. Russell arrived on the scene of his new duties full of 
 
 190
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 191 
 
 energy of body and mind, and of zeal in the service of his Queen. 
 He found himself hopelessly and helplessly alone, and it was 
 not long before he sank to the level of his surroundings. At 
 this period it is to be doubted whether the Irish administration 
 could boast a single honest man. Not one figure can we point 
 to, who rises above the universal quagmire of turpitude in which 
 all alike were sunk not one true man on whom the eye can rest 
 with a momentary sense of relief. In the official correspondence 
 of the day Tyrone, Hugh Roe and Maguire are invariably re- 
 ferred to as " the traitors." It was a convenient form of words 
 in which the sycophancy of the age found expression, and it 
 was universally adopted by men who were themselves incom- 
 parably more traitorous than those whom they thus stigmatized ; 
 for, while the Irish chiefs were frankly rebels against an 
 authority which they disliked, the English officials were daily 
 and hourly betraying the interests of the Queen who paid them. 
 Norris himself, who so readily assumed the role of virtuous 
 censor, was by no means free from the general contagion. The 
 prolonged and ignominious paralysis, which settled down on 
 the Government army while under his direction, can only be 
 explained by including the Commander-in-Chief in the list of 
 Tyrone's pensioners. Norris had greatly distinguished himself 
 in Flanders, and was quite properly reckoned one of the first 
 generals of the day, and yet in Ireland though provided with 
 abundant and veteran troops, and opposed by an enemy of 
 mediocre quality he was content to sit down for two years 
 in an inglorious inaction which was only broken by farcical 
 parleys and futile negotiations. 
 
 One of the worst features of a situation, which was ugly in 
 all its aspects, was that Ireland could boast of no single official 
 for whom the native chiefs had the slightest respect, or in whose 
 word they placed any confidence. Both Tyrone and Maguire 
 had full knowledge that all alike were cheating their Queen to 
 the utmost limits of their opportunities. In the endless parleys, 
 conferences and negotiations between the Government and the 
 rebels, which followed on Norris's northern expedition of 1595, 
 it is hard to say which side sank to the greater depths of perfidy 
 and fraud. Both Burleigh and Cecil had warnings in plenty 
 of the way in which things were being carried on across the 
 Channel, but the Queen was perhaps past her best, and it is 
 doubtful whether all that came to their knowledge was passed
 
 192 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 on. But that she was badly served she knew well enough, in 
 spite of her failing powers, and even before the close of the year 
 1595 she had written to Russell sharply reprimanding him for 
 the barrenness of his performances. The reprimand was not 
 altogether just, in view of the fact that she had herself deprived 
 him of the military command, and thereby tied his hands ; 
 but disappointed princes are not always as just as they are 
 critical. The truth was that the Queen was very disappointed 
 with Russell, from whom she had hoped for great things. The 
 Lord Deputy had been very carefully chosen. Just prior 
 to Fitzwilliam's recall, Sir George Carew had written a " Dis- 
 course on the state of Ireland," in which he said that, " although 
 the Earl (Tyrone) is a more absolute commander in the north than 
 was that arch-traitor Shane O'Neil, yet is it in Her Majesty's 
 power to determine this war in a few months, and the first step 
 towards it is to send a worthy gentleman hither to be her Deputy, 
 that hath a sterling martial spirit and an able body."* Such a 
 representative she thought she had found in Russell, but having 
 found him she committed the fatal blunder of destroying his 
 value by giving him only partial authority. By this foolish 
 step his " worthiness " was in a great measure neutralized, for 
 he was deprived of the power of giving it practical expression. 
 It must be recorded to Russell's credit that, as soon as he had 
 definite evidence that for unexplained reasons Norris was 
 disinclined to take active measures against Tyrone, he did his 
 best to get over an independent Scotch army who would be able 
 to strike a blow for Her Majesty under his direct command. j" 
 It is not clear whether this idea originated with Russell, or with 
 the Scots, but the point is not one of importance. Three times 
 during the first two years of his administration did the Deputy 
 write either to Burleigh or Cecil insisting upon the importance 
 of this step being taken. " Two thousand Scots," he urged, 
 " well assured to Her Majesty, would perform more service 
 upon the traitor Tyrone than twice so many English. "| The 
 Deputy's recommendation was strongly backed in a separate 
 letter by Bagenal, who culpable as he may have been in other 
 matters was certainly honest in his hatred of Tyrone. Such 
 repeated representations from independent sources could 
 
 * Carew MSS., 1594. | Russell to Cecil, June 22nd, 1596. 
 
 J Russell to Cecil, Dec. 20th, 1595 ; Dec. 26th, 1595, and Oct. 8th, 1596. See 
 also Carew MSS., 1596-261.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 193 
 
 hardly fail of their effect, and we know that, by the end of 1596, 
 the English Privy Council was fully persuaded of the advisa- 
 bility of employing a Scotch army in Ulster.* Looking back 
 across three centuries of history, it is difficult to see how there 
 could have been any hesitation. The Scots had few equals as 
 fighters in the particular class of warfare demanded by the 
 country conditions. They travelled light, fed themselves by 
 the simple method of taking what they wanted, and could stand 
 any amount of hardship. All this was freely admitted. The 
 only point in debate was as to whether they were " well assured 
 unto Her Majesty." This was a point as to which opinions 
 differed widely. Fenton and others of the Tyronian faction 
 stoutly affirmed that they were not, but it is to be doubted 
 whether this advice was governed wholly by zeal for Her 
 Majesty's interests. Russell's advice was clearly honest as far 
 as it went. His only personal interest in the matter lay in a 
 not unnatural desire to show that if he had an army at his 
 heels he could accomplish more than Norris had with his 
 Flanders veterans. The main argument which he put forward 
 in support of his advice was the admitted bitterness, at the 
 moment, of the three principal clans concerned against the Earl 
 of Tyrone. Russell claimed that this feeling of bitterness was 
 quite sufficient in itself to ensure the bond fides of the Scots, 
 as far as the subjugation of Tyrone was concerned. Beyond 
 that point there was naturally an element of uncertainty, but 
 this Russell was prepared to advise the Queen to risk. Angus 
 McDonnell, whose daughter Tyrone had just thrown back on 
 his hands as unsuitable, was at the moment full of an offended 
 indignationf of which appropriate advantage might well have 
 been taken. In the heat of his indignation Angus wrote Russell 
 a letter signed by both himself and his eldest son Donald Gorm, 
 in which he offered to serve Her Majesty against the rebel Earl 
 with all the force at his command. Russell passed the offer 
 on, with strong recommendations for its acceptance, but 
 without convincing the Queen, who was past the time of 
 life when new ideas can be readily absorbed, or fixed ideas 
 eradicated. 
 
 The opposition of Fenton, and of those who worked with 
 him, to the employment of the Scots, or indeed of any other 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Dec. 26th, 1596. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 205-100. Information of Capt. J. C. 
 
 13
 
 104 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 machinery which would have had the effect of ending the war, 
 is easily understood. So long as Tyrone and his satellitic 
 group of minor chiefs were in nominal rebellion against the 
 Queen, there were a thousand and one channels through which 
 money trickled noiselessly into the pockets of the Captains of 
 Companies, Masters of Musters, victuallers, contractors, aye, 
 and even the high personages of the Privy Council itself. 
 " Long live the war," was the secret toast of every Queen's 
 officer in Ireland, while the poor Queen herself was emptying 
 her treasury and penning stilted didactic dispatches, in the hopes 
 of putting an end to expenses which those to whom she wrote 
 were very fully determined should continue. 
 
 It is to be suspected that of all the Irish officials, Fenton, the 
 Secretary, was the most pro-Tyronian. This wily permanent 
 official, who by virtue of his fifteen years' residence in Dublin 
 Castle exercised a controlling influence over each successive 
 Deputy as he arrived, had naturally been the first target for 
 Tyrone's conciliatory advances, and in all probability com- 
 manded the highest subsidy. As to the manner in which these 
 subsidies were paid we have no exact information, but instructive 
 glimpses are from time to time afforded us of some of the devices 
 by which Tyrone got what he wanted. We know, for instance, 
 that in 1585, when Perrot was in Drogheda settling the land 
 disputes between Tyrone and Tirlough Luineach, the Earl 
 made a present of 40 to Perrot himself and every member of 
 his staff* (of whom Fenton was one). After reading of the 
 above, we feel little surprise that the verdict of Perrot and his 
 Council was in favour of the Earl. Prior to Tyrone's open 
 defection, Fenton had for many years past earned his pay by 
 posing as an ardent sponsor for Tyrone's loyalty, and, when 
 that position became no longer tenable, he served his cause as 
 far as opportunities admitted by subscribing to farcical truces 
 and cessations, and by opposing, by every trick of argument, the 
 employment of Scots against the rebel chiefs. 
 
 In pursuance of this last-named policy, he now set to work 
 to counteract the effect of Russell's letters, by marshalling 
 before the eyes of the English Council all the old familiar argu- 
 ments as to the criminal imprudence of allowing the Scots 
 to establish a firm footing in Ulster. He sounded every note 
 of danger likely to alarm a Ministry already wearied to death 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207-31.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 195 
 
 of Irish troubles, reminding them of the cancerous encroach- 
 ments of the Scots under Perrot and Drury, and predicting 
 that, if once established, they would prove far more formidable 
 foes than the Irish whom they were brought over to repress. 
 Where sedentary politicians are concerned, negative advice 
 has always a sweeter flavour than positive. Russell's recom- 
 mendations, which had at first been so favourably received, 
 were now put down to personal jealousy of Norris, and Bagenal's 
 endorsement of these recommendations to personal hatred 
 of Tyrone. Fenton's, on the other hand, were read as the 
 grave warnings of an experienced politician, and the offers of 
 Angus and Donald Gorm were thrown into the waste-paper 
 basket. 
 
 None viewed this insensate rejection of a good offer with 
 more genuine concern than that gallant soldier and true subject, 
 Captain Williams, who was quick to realize the double danger 
 that lay in the situation. " If Her Majesty," he wrote to the 
 Privy Council, " does not entertain the Scots who have offered 
 to come to Carrickfergus, Tyrone will have them if he can."* 
 Williams was right as to Tyrone's intentions in the matter, 
 but mercifully these intentions were never carried out, other- 
 wise the rebellion might have had a very different ending. 
 Five years earlier, Angus, justifiably incensed at the Queen's 
 rejection of his good offices, might very possibly have con- 
 cluded terms with Tyrone, but not after the insult that the 
 Earl had put upon his daughter. 
 
 So the Queen, following the advice of Fenton, which fell in 
 line with her ingrained prejudices, would have none of Angus's 
 offer. In the meanwhile, however, an unexpected complica- 
 tion had arisen. Angus, making quite sure of the acceptance 
 of an offer which he himself knew to be bona fide, shipped 
 3,000 men from Cantyre in a large flotilla of galleys. This 
 flotilla was unfortunately sighted by Captain Thornton, who 
 was cruising about the Channel with the old Popinjay and 
 the Charles, and he, in a pardonable excess of zeal, opened 
 fire and sank three of the galleys. The remainder, in much 
 surprise at this reception, made hurriedly for the adjacent 
 Copeland Islands, where they landed and hoisted the white 
 flag.f Captain Thornton, who was quite at a loss to know 
 
 * Capt. Williams to Privy Council, Nov. 1st, 1597. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 182-43-1, 2, 8 and 4. 
 
 13*
 
 196 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 how he should deal with a situation which was outside of his 
 experience, then also landed, and interviewed the leaders of 
 the Scotch flotilla, who explained that their mission was by 
 no means hostile to the Queen, but, on the contrary, aimed at 
 helping her.* Thornton wrote to Dublin reporting the cir- 
 cumstances, and asking for instructions. The Scots, he ex- 
 plained, were chiefly Campbells and Macleans, with a sprinkling 
 of McDonnells, and in his opinion were quite honest in their 
 intentions of helping the Queen. Almost simultaneously with 
 the arrival of this dispatch in Dublin, came Donald Gorm 
 himself from the Glynns, with the offer to put himself at the 
 head of the Copeland Island Scots and march forthwith against 
 the rebel Earl. He reminded Russell of the unbroken loyalty 
 of his father, Angus, and of his agent, Randall McNess, ever 
 since the granting to them of the Glynns by Perrot, and he 
 finished up with an undertaking that, if he were given a free 
 hand, he would bring Tyrone to his knees within three months. 
 Russell replied that he himself would gladly avail himself of 
 Donald's offer, but that his instructions from England were 
 directly to the contrary. He wrote, however, once more to 
 Cecil, reporting the incident, and reiterating his conviction 
 that the use of the Scots was the one and only way to bring 
 the rebellion to a speedy termination. 
 
 Not to be outdone by the Antrim Scots, Shane McBrian 
 and Neil McHugh, Phelim Bacagh's two grandsons, also made 
 their appearance in Dublin in the same week, each offering to 
 serve Her Majesty against Tyrone with all his energy and 
 forces, provided he might be assured of the lands of the other. 
 Neither of these offers, however, was accepted, the policy of the 
 Queen at the moment being to save her pocket by patching up 
 as dignified a peace as circumstances would permit of. Tyrone 
 was, as usual, making violent protestations of loyalty, backed 
 up by sycophantic offers of absolute submission ; and Eliza- 
 beth, who had already experienced four years of a most ex- 
 pensive and profitless war, with nothing resulting but a cease- 
 less drain on her exchequer, felt like giving up the struggle, 
 and wrote to that effect to Russell. 
 
 Elizabeth at the time was not well, and the workings of her 
 mind stand out perfectly clearly throughout the correspondence 
 between her and Russell. She thoroughly realized at last 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 182-26-1.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 197 
 
 that her English army in Ireland was not trying,* and that, 
 till she could find a man strong enough to stamp out the mul- 
 titude of abuses that had crept in, her only chance of sub- 
 jugating Tyrone lay in the co-operation of the Scots. This 
 last she grudgingly admitted ; but the expedient was still 
 bitterly distasteful to her, not only because it was an admission 
 of failure and as such humiliating to the last degree, but 
 because her old standing prejudices against the Scots had 
 become ingrained as a part of her nature, and at her time of 
 life were ineradicable. 
 
 So, as the lesser evil of the two, Norris received orders to 
 open peace negotiations with Tyrone, and the Scots went back 
 whence they had come. It is only fair to Norris, in view of 
 the serious allegations made against him subsequently, to say 
 that he himself at this period was opposed to a peace, which, 
 as he pointed out, and as everybody in Ulster knew perfectly 
 well, was only desired by Tyrone so that he might gain time. 
 Norris, however, while placarding facts which were already 
 public property, omitted to add that the Queen's resolve was 
 in the main born of his own unaccountable inertia. He had 
 at his disposal that which few commanders in Ireland had 
 ever been able to boast, viz., a well-equipped English army, 
 and yet his troops had only twice taken the field since Russell 
 had returned to Dublin at the end of July. On the first of 
 these occasions Captain William Warren had under very 
 suspicious circumstances led a party of forty-six horsemen 
 straight into an ambush which Tyrone had laid, and as to 
 which it was freely hinted that Warren himself had full infor- 
 mation. All his men were killed, but he himself was captured 
 and kept for several weeks at Castle Roe, nominally as Tyrone's 
 prisoner, but in reality as his guest and confederate. In the end 
 he was exchanged for two O'.Neil prisoners from Newry.f 
 
 On the second occasion there was a skirmish just outside 
 Armagh, in which Norris and his brother, Sir Henry, were 
 both wounded. Sir Henry Duke tried to magnify this affair, 
 which was fought in September, into a great battle, in which 
 Tyrone's army was completely overthrown, but in reality it 
 
 * ' And for the musters," she wrote to Hussell on March 25th, 1590, " of 
 which let Ralph Lane be sharply warned, either we have none, or such as we 
 assure you it is ludicrous to the world to hear what an army we pay, and what 
 an army we have." 
 
 f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 188-80-1.
 
 198 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 was a very trivial affair. Norris's force was attacked while 
 passing through a defile. The vanguard and " battle " were 
 allowed to pass unmolested, but the rearguard, with which 
 was Norris and his brother, was assailed by wild volleys from 
 a wood which abutted on the track. The Commander-in- 
 Chief was probably the chief target aimed at, for his horse 
 received no less than four bullet- wounds, and he himself two. 
 Finding himself unable to move, Norris urged his brother, 
 Sir Henry, to charge into the wood, which he did, completely 
 routing the party concealed there, who did not await the 
 attack. Tyrone was said to have lost some sixty men in the 
 pursuit which followed, while Norris had nine killed and thirty- 
 two wounded, among the latter being Sir Henry, who received 
 a bullet-wound in the thigh while leading his charge.* 
 
 These two insignificant encounters represent the sum total 
 of Norris's efforts against the rebels during the late summer 
 of 1595. His inaction was enough to discourage a younger 
 and more sanguine monarch than Elizabeth. The Government 
 forces, which included a considerable proportion of Flanders 
 veterans, now nominally numbered 6,300, and, in actual fact, 
 probably approached half that figure. The weather and the 
 season were in every way propitious for an active offensive, 
 and yet week after week was allowed to elapse and nothing 
 was done or even attempted. Norris pleaded, in excuse, his 
 own two wounds, which refused to heal (in one of which 
 gangrene eventually set in, which killed him), his faulty equip- 
 ment and a defective commissariat, which reduced his men 
 to a diet of bread and water. This last complaint was chiefly 
 aimed at discrediting Russell, and throwing the onus of failure 
 on his shoulders. Unfortunately, however, for its intended 
 effect, it reached Headquarters only a few days after a 
 jubilant letter from Bagenal, in which he announced the capture 
 of 2,000 of Tyrone's cattle ! 
 
 The Queen's resolve to treat for peace was no doubt equally 
 welcome to the Earl and to Norris. On the strength of it, 
 the two leaders met, and Norris, who was accompanied by Sir 
 George Bourchier and Sir Geoffrey Fenton, showed some 
 anxiety to discuss preliminary terms, but without making much 
 headway. Tyrone, whose aim was invariably to procrastinate, 
 pleaded his inability to act, or even to formally discuss final 
 
 * Trevelyan Papers.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 199 
 
 terms, without first consulting Hugh Roe, who was at the 
 time too busy land-grabbing in Connaught to attend the con- 
 ference. In the end, a cessation of hostilities was agreed to 
 for three months from October 1st, in order to give the three 
 rebel Hughs time to properly schedule their grievances and to 
 draw up their terms of submission. As pledges for his good 
 conduct during the truce, Tyrone placed four of the O'Hagan 
 children in Norris's keeping a transaction which was after- 
 wards very unfavourably commented upon by Norris's enemies, 
 as the hostages given were proved to have no value whatever 
 in the eyes of the depositors.* 
 
 During the three months' truce, the Government had many 
 offers of service against the rebels from minor Ulster chiefs, 
 among whom were Neil Me Art, Tyrone's nephew, Hugh Roe's 
 younger brother Rory, and Sir John O'Dogherty. Not only 
 did these three offer personal service against their trouble- 
 some relative, but they also undertook to detach from his 
 standard a considerable following, which there is little doubt 
 that they were in a position to do. The offer was very wisely 
 declined, as it was sufficiently obvious that the only motive 
 behind it was a desire on the part of the friendly chiefs to step 
 into their relatives shoes, where they were likely to prove 
 quite as mutinous and disorderly as those they had replaced. 
 
 Another simultaneous offer in rather a different category 
 was that of James McSorley, who, the moment the truce 
 between Norris and Tyrone was signed, presented himself at 
 Carrickfergus, and in the presence of Captains Egerton, Merry- 
 man, Bethel and Moyle (the latter of Her Majesty's ship Moon, 
 lying at this moment in Carrickfergus Bay), made his humble 
 submission, and undertook that if his brother Randall were 
 released from Dublin Castle he would serve Her Majesty with 
 all the resources at his command. He added, in explanation, 
 that, unless Randall were so released, it was out of his power 
 to carry out his loyal intentions, as he had no children, kith 
 or kin of any sort, except his brother, to manage his estate 
 during his absence in the fieldf. It is not to be conceived that 
 any member of his audience attached much value to this under- 
 taking, for it was a matter of common knowledge that James 
 was on the very closest terms of intimacy with Tyrone. 
 Nevertheless, Randall McSorley was released not in antici- 
 
 * Capt. Lee to Burleigh, Sept. 2nd, 1596. f Cal - State Papers, Vol. 188-78-2.
 
 200 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 pation of his elder brother's good services, but in exchange 
 for his illegitimate brother Loder (a mere boy), and in con- 
 sideration of the sum of 200 paid to someone, presumably 
 to Russell, though this is not definitely established.* From 
 the circumstances surrounding this incident arises the first 
 suggestion of the Deputy's fall from his initial honesty. The 
 impeccable Norris expressed himself full of honest disgust 
 at the transaction. " So," he wrote to Cecil, " is Her Majesty's 
 service everywhere managed." Norris' s scandalized denuncia- 
 tion of the act may be taken as prima facie evidence that 
 Russell was the recipient of the bribe, or, at all events, that 
 Norris thought he was, for there was no other man that the 
 Commander-in-Chief would so gladly have seen recalled. 
 
 It was not long before Tyrone's real reasons for applying for 
 a three months' truce were made very clear, for the Govern- 
 ment succeeded in intercepting two letters dispatched jointly 
 by him and Hugh Roe to Spain. The first was to the King 
 of Spain, and ran as follows : " Our only hope of establishing 
 the Catholic religion rests on your assistance. Now or never 
 our Church must be succoured. By the timidity or negligence 
 of the messengers our former letters have not reached you. 
 We therefore again beseech you to send us 2,000 or 3,000 
 soldiers, with money and arms, before the Feast of St. Philip 
 and St. James. With such aid we hope to restore the faith 
 of the Church, and to secure you a kingdom. "t The second 
 letter was to Don Carlos, urging him to forward their cause 
 with the King, and finishing up with the ominous prediction 
 that, if the assistance asked for were given, " heretics shall 
 fail in Ireland within a year as smoke in presence of the fire."| 
 
 The chief value of these letters, at the time they were inter- 
 cepted, lay in the startling revelation which they afforded of 
 Tyrone's duplicity, and of his sinister designs against the 
 Protestant population, i.e., the English. Its chief interest, 
 however, to-day lies in its remarkable exposure of the double 
 dealings of the Government. It is hardly conceivable that, 
 after receiving first-hand evidence from Tyrone's own pen 
 that he was merely temporizing till aid from Spain should 
 make him strong enough to throw off the mask, the Govern- 
 
 * Capt. Egerton to Burleigh, Oct. 1595. 
 
 f Cal. State Papers, Sept. 1595-167. 
 
 j Carew MSS., 1595-168. Cal. State Papers, Vol. 183-61.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 201 
 
 tnent should still continue parleying, negotiating and going 
 through the worn-out farce of pretending to accept as genuine 
 all his fulsome protestations of loyalty. And yet so it was. In 
 case the letter itself might have left any doubt as to Tyrone's 
 real designs, Art McBaron, the Earl's elder and illegitimate 
 brother at the moment a candidate for Government favour 
 wrote to the Privy Council warning them that his brother's 
 only object was to gain time, and that any peace terms arranged 
 would be disregarded the moment the Spaniards arrived.* 
 None of these warnings appear to have influenced the Govern- 
 ment in the slightest degree. The policy of the moment was 
 to picture Tyrone as an erring penitent craving for readmission 
 to the fold. He had so far committed no unpardonable crime, 
 and, but for the irrefutable evidence of his double dealings, 
 such a policy would have been justifiable enough. In face of 
 the evidence it is not to be satisfactorily explained. 
 
 On November 22nd Tyrone wrote to the Deputy from 
 Dungannon setting out the terms on which he and Hugh Roe 
 were ready to submit. He agreed in the first place to pay a 
 fine of 20,000 cattle, to be levied on the lands of all those who 
 had rebelled, and, further, to accept sheriffs in all the Ulster 
 counties, provided such sheriffs were honest men, " lest by their 
 evil dealing we be driven to forg'et our loyalty in seeking the 
 safety of our lives and goods, as heretofore we have been much 
 abused by the over-greedy desire of lucre, and the ill-dealing 
 of such as have borne office in Ulster." 
 
 These proposals were sent across to England, and within 
 a month the Queen's acceptance came back, qualified by the 
 stipulations that the 20,000 cattle were to be handed over 
 within six months, and that Maguire and O'Rourke were to 
 be excluded from the general pardon. These articles were 
 personally carried to Tyrone at Dungannon on Christmas 
 Eve by Captain Blount, who brought back word that both 
 Tyrone and Hugh Roe, who was in Lifford at the time, 
 would meet the Deputy in the Fews (Co. Armagh) on January 
 15th to discuss the amendments. As though to emphasize 
 the farcical character of all these pretended negotiations, 
 Monaghan was treacherously seized by Cormac McBaron and 
 the O'Hagans on the very same day that Blount arrived at 
 Dungannon. As a sacrifice to appease the wrath of the Queen 
 
 * John Morgan to Deputy, July, 1500.
 
 202 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 at the loss of this important place, which was handed over to 
 Cormac without a shot being fired, six English members of the 
 garrison were made scapegoats and hanged. The real culprit, 
 however, was Patrick Me Art Movie,* the sheriff and Constable 
 of the town. This man had been in the English pay and 
 English confidence ever since the rebellion broke out, and 
 he was considered sufficiently trustworthy to occupy the posi- 
 tion of Constable and sheriff of Monaghan during the cessation, 
 when no hostilities were to be expected. Cessations and 
 treaties, however, meant no more to Tyrone than a convenience 
 to himself, and, a week before the treaty expired, he persuaded 
 the treacherous McMahon to give the place into his hands. Six 
 Englishmen, as has been said, were hanged, and Patrick McArt 
 Moyle, fearing an extension of the expiatory sacrifice, took 
 refuge in flight and joined the rebels. 
 
 The seizure of Monaghan during the treaty practically 
 put a halter round the necks of the four unfortunate O'Hagan 
 children, who were lying in Armagh as hostages ; but the 
 penalty was not exacted, possibly for the reason that neither 
 Tyrone nor the parents of the children would have cared in 
 the least if it had been. In fact it was freely alleged, in con- 
 demnation of Norris's acceptance of such children, that the 
 parents of the pledges were among the most eager to break 
 the treaty and get possession of Monaghan. 
 
 Encouraged by this first success, Tyrone next tried to get 
 possession in the same manner of Dundrum and Strangford 
 Castles. He offered Captain James Fitz-Garratt 100, and, 
 in fact, anything else he might ask, if he would hand over to 
 him these two places. His offers were preceded by very exact 
 inquiries as to the capacity of Lough Strangford for sheltering 
 a large fleet, so that it was at once apparent that his eager- 
 ness to get possession of the two Castles, which dominated the 
 harbour, had at the back of it the vision of a Spanish fleet 
 sailing in to his assistance. Fitz-Garratt loftily put aside the 
 proffered bribe, and after solemnly swearing secrecy to 
 Tyrone promptly reported the whole occurrence to the Privy 
 Council.f Had there been a shred of honesty of purpose left 
 in the Dublin executive, these two consecutive proofs of 
 Tyrone's treacherous intentions could not have failed to have 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 186-26. Fenton to Burleigh, Dec. 24th, 1595. 
 f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 192-7-11.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 208 
 
 broken off further negotiations ; but, so far from this being 
 the case, Gardiner and Wallop were sent up to continue the 
 farce of treating with the Earl, as though he were the most 
 honourable and chivalrous of men. On the occasion of this 
 meeting Tyrone came accompanied by Hugh Roe, and they 
 both came with such exceedingly bad consciences that 
 they were afraid to come even within hailing distance of the 
 Commissioners. Wallop and Gardiner soon grew tired of 
 conducting an interview across a two-mile-wide valley, and 
 in the end rode back to Dundalk, from whence they sent a 
 messenger to the Ulster chiefs carrying a safe-conduct sealed 
 and signed by both Commissioners. Reassured by the pos- 
 session of this document, the two chiefs then fixed a fresh 
 appointment for the 21st at Sir John Bellew's house, and 
 thither the respective parties rode on the day named. With 
 the two Commissioners went Sir Henry Duke (to act as inter- 
 preter in the case of Hugh Roe) and Captain Garrett Moore, 
 as a public advertisement of the pro-Tyronian sympathies of 
 the Deputation. 
 
 Tyrone and Hugh Roe arrived with 200 horsemen, which 
 was quite contrary to agreement. Even with this formidable 
 bodyguard they were still in a highly nervous condition 
 and sat for a long while on the hill opposite, spying the country 
 round, before they would come forward. " During our par- 
 ley," Gardiner reported, " we found them as men exceeding 
 fearful, continually gazing about them and less attentive unto 
 our speeches than at the first."* The suggestion was at first 
 made that the conference should take a divided form, Wallop 
 interviewing Hugh Roe, while Gardiner talked to Tyrone ; 
 but Hugh Roe who was as insolent throughout as Tyrone 
 was sycophantic absolutely refused to have anything to do 
 with such an arrangement, or to allow Tyrone to speak a word 
 out of his hearing, an objection which argued little trust 
 between the two chiefs. So in the end the parley proceeded 
 in the presence of all. 
 
 The Commissioners began by upbraiding Tyrone for his 
 breach of faith in having seized Monaghan during the cessation. 
 Tyrone, of course, denied all complicity in the transaction, 
 which he assured them was undertaken without his knowledge 
 or consent. He pleaded impotence of control over his illegiti- 
 
 * Commissioners to Deputy, Carew MSS., Jan. 28rd, 1586.
 
 204 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 mate son Con and his brother Cormae, and he assured the 
 Commissioners that, if he were to attempt to suppress such 
 acts of violence, the O'Hagans and O' Quins would at once 
 depose him and nominate Cormae in his place. This was 
 possibly true, and, in fact, is in accordance with the general 
 evidence. Tyrone, beyond doubt, had no restrictive power 
 over his followers. A year after the Dundalk parley. Captain 
 Lee went on a friendly visit to Tyrone at Dungannon, and 
 came back strongly impressed (as most people were after 
 private interviews with the Earl) with the loyalty of Tyrone's 
 own intentions, but admitting that he " was directed whether 
 he will or not by that damnable crew who now direct him." 
 Cormae he described as a man " only fit for the gallows." 
 
 As a set-off against the treacherous seizure of Monaghan, 
 Hugh Roe referred to his own abduction and imprisonment 
 by Perrot while yet an unoffending boy, to which Gardiner 
 replied that it was lawful for the Queen so to hold her sub- 
 jects as pledges, and that the same course had always been 
 adopted by the native chiefs themselves. " Why, then," 
 inquired the Earl, " do you take great sums of money for 
 their deliverance, as you have done of the O'Reillys ? "* 
 " The Queen," Gardiner replied, " set him freely at liberty." 
 " Yes," said the Earl, " but others had the money." " Alas," 
 replied the virtuous Commissioner, " the Queen's officers are 
 sometimes corrupt, as are also yours." 
 
 The next day the conference was continued, but nothing 
 further was settled beyond a concession to Tyrone of the 
 indefinite prolongation of the cessation, which was, "of course, 
 all that he cared about. Hugh Roe, throughout the parley, 
 was far more defiant than the Earl, and told the Commissioners 
 plainly that he would endorse no terms which included the 
 restoration of Inishowen to O'Dogherty. O'Dogherty him- 
 self, who was present during the parley (as a prisoner), wisely 
 held his tongue, but no doubt had his own thoughts on the 
 subject. The conference ended with the formal handing in 
 to the Commissioners of the written grievances of all the 
 chiefs who had rebelled. These grievances were remarkable 
 to this extent, that they, one and all, with the exception of 
 Shane McBrian's, traced the cause of the general disaffection 
 
 * Fitzwilliam and Maplesdon, the Governor of Dublin Castle, were reported 
 to have divided 1,000 over the escape of O'Reilly after Segar had been deposed 
 for refusing the bribe.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 205 
 
 back to some unconstitutional act on the part of Fitzwilliam. 
 Hugh Roe complained of the late Deputy's perfidy in im- 
 prisoning his mother's chief counsellor, Sir Owen O'Toole, 
 after he had, through Bermingham, promised that he would 
 not take him outside the limits of Donegal.* 
 
 Hugh Maguire's complaint was directed equally against 
 Bingham and Fitzwilliam. Bingham, he said, had raided 
 his country while he was a peaceable subject, and committed 
 many devastations. Fitzwilliam he accused of having accepted 
 a bribe of 300 beeves, which Maguire had paid him in order 
 to secure exemption for one year from a sheriff in Fermanagh. 
 notwithstanding which Captain Willis, with 100 men, was 
 sent as sheriff. f 
 
 Brian McHugh Oge McMahon complained that Hugh Roe 
 McMahon had paid 650 beeves to the Fitzwilliam's family 
 according to arrangement, and that, in spite of this, he had 
 been hanged and his lands divided up among a number of 
 Englishmen. Shane McBrian's grievance was that Essex had 
 taken Magee Island from his father, and that Bagenal had 
 kept him in prison till he had agreed to make over to him the 
 Barony of Magheramourne. 
 
 Tyrone himself was not equal to the task of manufacturing 
 a grievance, which is hardly surprising, in view of the fact 
 that he had now, for over thirty years, been the spoilt child 
 of the Queen and English Government, to whom he owed 
 everything. His attitude was rather one of righteous indigna- 
 tion at the grievances of the others grievances which, as the 
 chief man in Ulster, it was his duty to see righted, or, at any 
 rate, neutralized by some means. 
 
 The examination of the grievances, and their transmission 
 from Ireland to England and back again, occupied the whole 
 of February and March, and early in April the Queen's final 
 instructions reached the Lord Deputy. J A general pardon, 
 those instructions laid down, was to be extended to everyone 
 who had offended, beginning with the minor rebels, and after- 
 wards to include Tyrone and Hugh Roe, if these would agree 
 to certain terms which would be discussed with them by 
 
 * Carew MSS , Jan 27th, 1596. f 
 
 % Although the Queen acquiesced in the terms proposed she was so indignant 
 with the manner in which the Commissioners had conducted the affair that when 
 Gardiner visited London shortly afterwards she refused him her presence (Cecil 
 to Deputy, March 9th,
 
 206 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 officially-appointed delegates. Accordingly, in the early days 
 of April, Sir John Norris and Sir Geoffrey Fenton, who had 
 been nominated for the undertaking, rode to Dundalk, carry- 
 ing the Queen's pardon for all the lesser chiefs concerned in 
 the rebellion, i.e., Hugh Maguire, Brian McHugh Oge McMahon, 
 Sir John O'Reilly, Philip O'Reilly and Shane McBrian. These 
 notables collected in the market-place at Dundalk, and there 
 humbly received the envoys on their knees,* after which they 
 were given absolution, a complete whitewash for all their past 
 misdeeds, and suitable exhortations to behave as dutiful sub- 
 jects in the future. 
 
 Tyrone himself was in the neighbourhood, but neither he 
 nor Hugh Roe put in an appearance during the first few days 
 of the conference, as each was, at the moment, very unwilling 
 to meet the other. The fact was that Hugh Roe had recently 
 turned out of his house Tyrone's daughter, with whom he 
 had been living for six years, but whom in hopes of getting 
 the Earl of Clanricarde's daughter he had never married. 
 Tyrone, not unnaturally, resented this affront to his blood, 
 and a very serious coolness sprang up in consequence between 
 the two chiefs.f Tyrone's daughter (who was illegitimate) 
 went back to her father, who having no use for her did his 
 very best to get the Earl of Argyle to marry her, but, as may 
 be supposed, without success. Exasperated by this dis- 
 appointment, Tyrone now made such very plain representations 
 on the subject to Hugh Roe that the latter finally agreed to 
 take back the lady and to go through the marriage ceremony 
 with her, and in this way harmony was once more restored. J 
 This was all subsequent to the conference, at the time of which 
 the relations between the two chiefs were, as has been said, 
 exceedingly strained. As soon, however, as Tyrone learned 
 that his pseudo-son-in-law was not in Dundalk, he rode into 
 the outskirts of the town, and there presented himself to the 
 Commissioners. His attitude on this occasion was not as 
 contrite as might have been desired. He resolutely refused 
 to give up Shane's sons, which was one of the Queen's special 
 stipulations, and, on the other hand, he insisted on the with- 
 drawal of the Government garrison from Armagh. Both 
 points were weakly conceded by the Commissioners, who, 
 
 * Norris and Fenton to Privy Council, April 22nd, 1596. 
 
 j- Russell to Burleigh, April 2nd, 1596. J Bagenal to Deputy, April 6th, 1597.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 207 
 
 at the end of three weeks of burlesque negotiations, on April 
 24th signed an agreement every point of which was in favour 
 of the rebels. The points which the Commissioners claimed 
 that they had gained were two in number. The first was an 
 undertaking which Tyrone gave that he would pay a sub- 
 stantial fine in consideration of the Government evacuation 
 of Armagh, a fine which both parties, of course, knew would 
 never be paid ; and the second was an undertaking for the 
 delivery of Cormac McBaron's son and of Tirlough McHenry's 
 son as pledges in lieu of the four O'Hagan children. This last 
 was no less of a farce than the other, for it was well known that 
 the pledges deposited by the Earl were never hanged, no 
 matter how deeply he might offend ; witness the survival of 
 the four O'Hagans. 
 
 Russell was coldly sarcastic over the achievements of the 
 Commissioners, and wrote his mind very freely to Norris. 
 " Nine months spent in cessations and treaties," was his scornful 
 comment, " out of which have grown our greatest loss."* 
 On the other hand, Tyrone was now in the very best of spirits, as 
 he had every right to be. The moment the articles were signed 
 he took himself off to Castle Roe with Magennis's daughter, 
 and there the happy couple amused themselves for ten days 
 spearing and netting salmon on the Bann.f This charming 
 idyll was interrupted by the arrival in Donegal of no less a 
 personage than Don Alonzo de Cobos, a Spanish grandee, who 
 landed with a considerable retinue at Killibegs on the 1st May, 
 and was thence escorted with suitable parade to Lifford. News 
 was sent to the Earl at Castle Roe of the important arrival, 
 and he and Henry Hoveden at once got to horse and rode 
 across the forty miles to Lifford, arriving there almost at 
 the same time as the Spanish delegate. J There was a great 
 gathering to welcome the guests, among those present being 
 Hugh Roe, Cormac McBaron, O'Cahan, Art O'Hagan, Saloman 
 Farenan, O'Gallagher Bishop of Derry, and Tyrone's mother, 
 who was now the widow of Sir Owen O'Toole. This distin- 
 guished party entertained Don Alonzo to a dinner, at which 
 there was much joyous carousing, and much promise of great 
 times to come in the near future for the Catholic Church and 
 for its principal Ulster supporters. 
 
 * Russell to Norris, June 30th, 1596. f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 189-27. 
 J Rice-ap-Hugh to Deputy, May 18th, 1596.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Tyrone's pan-Irish Army Death of Sir John O'Reilly Philip O'Reilly usurps 
 the succession Tyrone's son Con protests Death of Philip O'Reilly 
 James McSorley seizes the Glynns Angus Oge's threat James McSorley 
 submits to Tyrone He marries Tyrone's daughter. 
 
 IT had been from no mere sentiment of courtesy to a stranger 
 that Tyrone had been induced to undertake a forty-mile 
 ride across Coleraine, and to leave Magennis's daughter lan- 
 guishing at Castle Roe. It was rumoured (and as it turned 
 out correctly) that the envoy had brought with him much 
 treasure, and Tyrone knew enough of his confederates to make 
 him anxious to get this treasure under lock and key without 
 a moment's unnecessary delay. Consignments of Spanish 
 doubloons had now, for some time past, been arriving at 
 intervals at Killibegs, Lough Foyle, or Lough Swilly. For 
 purposes of promoting the rebellion, money was little less 
 effective than men, for it put Tyrone in a position not only 
 to bribe Government officials to shut their eyes to that which 
 was going on, but also to arm, drill and equip the male adult 
 population of Ulster. 
 
 The organization of a pan-Irish army was at the present 
 moment the Earl's main anxiety, for, as already explained, 
 the Scots had by this time almost entirely deserted the rebel 
 combination in the north.* Such being the circumstances, 
 Tyrone had realized for some time past that, in the future, he 
 would have to rely for his fighting forces mainly on the native 
 element, and this native element was now being regularly 
 drilled by imported Spanish instructors. Of these foreign 
 drill-sergeants a considerable consignment had come with 
 Don Alonzo, and subsequently remained in the country for the 
 use and instruction of the Irish army. We are told that this 
 army now numbered 3,500 well-drilled and equipped men, of 
 whom 1,000 were provided by County Tyrone, 1,000 by Done- 
 * Russell to Burleigh, Sept. 8th, 1595. 
 208
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 209 
 
 gal, 500 by Clandeboyc, and 1,000 by the three southern 
 counties of Ulster and the three northern counties of Connaught.* 
 Tyrone aimed at doubling these numbers, and in point of fact, 
 when the climax was reached at the Battle of Kinsale, he had 
 as many as 6,500 Irish troops under his command. 
 
 Recognizing the urgent need for an efficient army, the Earl, 
 we are told, " infinitely belaboured his men with training "f 
 to the intense disgust of the Irish kerne, who, under the pressure 
 of an unaccustomed discipline, declared that they hated the 
 best Spaniard far more than they did the worst Englishman.^ 
 
 Tyrone's military preparations were not allowed to interfere 
 with his civil administration of the province, of which he still 
 considered himself the absolute autocrat. Any show of in-, 
 dependence on the part of his urraghs or vassals was speedily 
 visited by the summary punishment which had always been 
 associated with the rule of the O' Neils. A case arose in Cavan 
 which gave him an opportunity of showing that though in 
 rebellion against the Government he had still time to deal 
 with his home affairs. Sir John O'Reilly had died in Cavan 
 in the late summer of 1595, and his death had at once given 
 rise to the familiar dissensions so invariably associated with 
 the tanistry system. Sir John's brother Philip made the 
 first move by seizing the Brenny and having himself there 
 proclaimed the O'Reilly, but he made the fatal mistake of 
 doing so without first receiving the blessing of the great O'Neil. 
 Such an act of presumption was not to be lightly overlooked, 
 and in October Tyrone sent his illegitimate son Con into Cavan 
 with a force which was sufficiently strong to establish the 
 principle that he and he alone was to nominate any new chief 
 in Ulster. Con, who was nothing if not thorough, carried 
 out his mission with considerable zeal, killed Philip O'Reilly 
 and, in the name of Tyrone, established Sir John's elder son 
 Edmund in his place. This was in itself quite sufficient to 
 make the Government hotly espouse the cause of the second son 
 Mulmore, who, in the natural furtherance of his own aims, 
 became from that time on an active ally of the Government, 
 and was eventually killed fighting against Tyrone at the Battle 
 of Yellowford. 
 
 * Rice-ap-Hugh to Deputy, Nov. 1596. 
 
 f Sir Ralph Lane to Essex, Oct. 23rd, 1596. 
 
 J Cal. State Papers, April, 1597. Cal. State Papers, Vol. 194r-21-3. 
 
 H
 
 210 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 While matters were thus shaping in Cavan, James McSorley 
 in the north had been giving signs of growing territorial am- 
 bition, and of various other undesirable peculiarities. He had 
 already turned McQuillin out of the Route, and he now followed 
 this up by seizing the Glynns, where Randall McNess's retainers 
 were numerically too weak to make any practical protest. 
 Donald Gorm was in Scotland at the time, and the only repre- 
 sentative of the family in Ireland was Angus Oge, i.e., Angus 
 Junior. He fortunately managed to elude capture by the 
 invaders, and set sail for Scotland in a small galley, with a 
 parting promise that he would come back from Cantyre with 
 such a force as would make short work of all the sons of Sorley 
 Boy.* These, however, were finally brought to their senses 
 by other and quicker means. Tyrone cared nothing for Angus, 
 but he had no intention of seeing a man like James McSorley 
 whose services could always be bought by the Government 
 at a price grow too strong. He accordingly laid himself 
 out to champion the hitherto neglected cause of McQuillin with 
 an entirely new zeal. McSorley was peremptorily ordered to 
 contract his borders to their old limits, or to feel the weight of 
 the Earl's displeasure. This latter he was by no means anxious 
 for, and, in face of a danger which he knew to be very real, 
 and the reality of which had only recently been impressed upon 
 him by the fate of Philip O'Reilly, he sought an alliance with 
 the English, promising to assist the Government with all his 
 forces if they would support him in his recent acquisitions and 
 protect him against Tyrone. The Government made no imme- 
 diate reply, and in the meanwhile Monaghan had as already 
 described fallen into Tyrone's hands. This latter event 
 had an immediate effect on the situation in Antrim, for 
 McSorley seeing that the affront was swallowed without even 
 an attempt at retaliation on the part of the Government, and 
 observing that the perennial negotiations with the Earl went 
 on as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened 
 concluded that Tyrone's party was the stronger of the two, 
 and promptly tendered his submission to the Earl. Tyrone was 
 highly delighted at this development, for the sons of Sorley Boy 
 were now the only channel through which he could hope to draw 
 any assistance from Scotland, and, in order to cement the 
 alliance, he produced a daughter though a very young one as 
 
 * Russell to Privy Council, Aug. 13th, 1596. Cal. State Papers, Vol. 192-7-3.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 211 
 
 a wife for James. " The Earl," Richard Weston, his accountant, 
 wrote, " hath lately married his daughter of nine years of age 
 to James McSorley."* This signal mark of favour was highly 
 appreciated by James and his brothers, and. with a view to 
 celebrating the change in the family fortunes, they made a 
 spirited raid on Carrickfergus, and carried off several droves 
 of the townsmen's cattle. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 201-07-2 and Vol. 201-70.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Maurice Kyffin appointed auditor of the army accounts Astounding revelations 
 Frauds practised by the Master of Musters and the Captains Misery of 
 the common soldiers Russell's uneasiness He issues new and stringent 
 regulations Indignation of the Queen at the abuses disclosed Her scathing 
 letter to the Privy Council Russell recalled Appointment of Lord Burgh. 
 
 AT the close of the year 1596 the Queen's interest and 
 attention was diverted from the sporadic splutterings 
 of Tyrone's rebellion to the astounding revelations which 
 followed on the appointment of one Maurice Kyffin as auditor 
 of the army accounts. The substance of Kyffin' s startling 
 report, issued after several months devoted to investigation, 
 was that the returns of the Captains of Musters were systemati- 
 cally falsified, and that the English army in effect only existed 
 on paper. Sir Conyers Clifford, e.g., regularly drew pay for 
 2,000 men, but he had never mustered more than 1,200, and of 
 these the majority were Irish. If the 1,200 men had been 
 paid, the fraud would have been a little less scandalous, but 
 it was now made abundantly clear that the common practice 
 with all the Captains in Ireland was to draw for a purely 
 fictitious muster, and then not even to pay the few that did 
 answer the roll. Sir Ralph Lane, the Master-General of the 
 Musters, was pointed to as the central figure round which the 
 entire conspiracy revolved, his practice being to pass on to the 
 Captains only a portion of the money sent over from England 
 for the payment of their Companies, the balance remaining 
 in his own hands. In some cases he passed on none. Captain 
 Egerton complained that neither he nor any of the Carrick- 
 fergus garrison had drawn pay for five years. All his private 
 substance, he pleaded, had been expended in Her Majesty's 
 service. Egerton's was by no means an isolated case ; it was 
 indeed typical rather than exceptional, and Burleigh, on re- 
 ceiving the report, ceased to wonder that men placed in such a 
 position should be tempted to treat with Tyrone for the betrayal 
 
 212
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 218 
 
 of posts which offered neither honour nor profit, and the 
 maintenance of which for the Queen devoured their private 
 means. 
 
 The Captains being themselves ill -used and defrauded 
 in their turn defrauded the men. Such attenuated money- 
 bags as did from time to time get as far as the Captains, got 
 no farther. The men got nothing nothing, that is, from the 
 State. For their pay and their subsistence they had to depend 
 precariously on what they could rob the country people of. 
 This was, in fact, an adaptation of the native custom of coyne, 
 livery and bonaght so rigidly banned by the English Govern- 
 ment as being the primary cause of all the internal disorders 
 in Ireland, and yet secretly practised by every Captain in 
 the Queen's pay. The English soldiers, however, proved far 
 less apt at the game of spoliation than the Irish, from which 
 circumstance arose a practice, which gradually became general, 
 of replacing such English as died or deserted by Irish, who 
 were used to the bonaght system, and who throve on it where 
 the English starved. 
 
 There is no direct evidence to prove that it was at Russell's 
 instigation that Kyffin was appointed, but it is abundantly 
 clear that the former was considerably scandalized by dis- 
 closures which might easily be interpreted in England as a 
 reflection on his own rule. In a desperate attempt to make 
 amends for malpractices in the past which he foresaw might 
 easily be attributed to him, he now at the eleventh hour issued 
 orders, of an ail-but Cromwellian severity, against the robbery 
 or abuse of the natives by the soldiers.* By the curious irony 
 of fortune, however, the very stringency of these regulations 
 became an additional source of evil, for they gave the Captains 
 such power of life and death over their men, that these were 
 afraid to clamour too loud for their rights, lest they should be 
 hanged for the looting which alone saved them from starvation. 
 
 The case of the common soldiers was indeed desperate. 
 Even Wallop, who was himself no paragon of virtue, and whose 
 accounts after his death were found to be in a sadly irregular 
 state, was moved to draw Burleigh's attention to the extreme 
 misery of the troops who were expected by those in England 
 to march on from victory to victory. He reported them to be 
 " destitute of brogues, shirts, mantles, or anything to protect 
 * Carew MSS., Sept. 18th, 1596.
 
 214 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 them from the weather." Their feet, we are told, literally 
 rotted off them from neglect. They died like flies of every 
 conceivable disease which springs from improper feeding, 
 clothing and housing. Many deserted and many were hanged 
 for a mutiny for which every possible provocation . was given. 
 The gaps were filled up with Irish, who were ordered to adopt 
 English names in order to back the deception. But let us 
 hear Kyffin himself, in his own curious polysyllabic language. 
 " The shameful corruption in the Officers of Musters, so long 
 continued, together with the infinite and inveterate art of 
 falsehoood here practised (and as it were authorized by general 
 custom), have irrecuperably damnified this State. It is lament- 
 able to consider whether the outcry of the soldiers everywhere 
 for want of pay, or of the country people, extremely robbed 
 and pillaged by the soldiers, be the more grievous. The 
 whole country, even within the English Pale, be left waste 
 without habitation or tillage ; and now, as the inhabitants 
 of the land go generally a-begging with their wives and children, 
 so the soldiers, having left neither for others nor yet for them- 
 selves any further means of relief, do by the just judgment 
 of God most miserably starve and famish. Between the rebels 
 on the one hand and our own soldiers (being for the most part 
 Irish and living altogether on the spoil) all is devoured and 
 destroyed. Though the expense of Her Majesty's treasure 
 sent over here be exceeding great, yet is there here no manner 
 of appearance thereof. The Captains for their part exclaim, 
 our soldiers die wretchedly in the open streets and highways, 
 the native subject spoiled and brought to extreme beggary, 
 no service in war performed, no military discipline or civil 
 justice exercised ; briefly the whole kingdom ruined and 
 foraged." In a later report (March, 1597), he alludes to frauds 
 even more deep-seated than he had at first suspected. " I 
 am," he reports, " somewhat entered into discovery of one of 
 the most foul and shameful abuses that ever was heard of in 
 any State, viz., the sale and purloining of the soldiers' victual 
 by the clerks and inferior officers of bands, whereby the poor 
 soldiers are most lamentably hunger-starved. It is not 
 creditable what misery and extremity they are put to. They 
 die wretchedly and woefully in the streets and highways, 
 far less regarded than any beasts. Nothing is more needed than 
 for good authority to be conferred on a faithful man who woulcj
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 215 
 
 surely look into these enormities." The last observation was 
 probably intended less as a reflection on Russell than as a 
 direct hit at Lane, for it was clearly not as Deputy that the faith- 
 ful man was to come, but as Master of Musters. To the Queen, 
 however, it appeared all-important that the man at the head 
 of the State should himself be clear of all reproach. She was 
 sufficient acute to know that neither Russell, nor, in fact, any of 
 his predecessors, had any opportunity of participating in the 
 profits derived from the army frauds ; but she also knew 
 that a Deputy, who was himself corrupt in other departments 
 of the administration, was tied hand and foot when it came to 
 the censure and punishment of fraud in others. As far as 
 the Queen's pocket was concerned, it made little difference 
 whether Russell was a participator in, or merely a condoner of, 
 the frauds. It was sufficiently clear that only a rigidly honest 
 man could even attempt to put an end to abuses that had 
 taken such deep root. From the moment that Kyffin's report 
 was received, Elizabeth began to cast about for such a man 
 among her subjects, and such a man she ultimately found in 
 Lord Burgh, K.G., Governor of Brill in Holland. Burgh was 
 a great and a good man, but neither he, nor Burleigh, nor the 
 Queen, had any illusions as to the extreme filth of the Augean 
 stable that he was called upon to clear out, nor as to the perils 
 that surrounded such an undertaking. " In Ireland," Maurice 
 Kyffin had written, " there is nothing more dangerous and 
 detestable than to be an honest man."* He himself, he 
 reported, had been offered gold and horses from all quarters, 
 if only he would suppress the truth, but he had resolutely pushed 
 away all bribes, and as a consequence went about in daily fear 
 of an assassination,! which, in the end, overtook him only too 
 surely. 
 
 Burleigh was no less scandalized than the Queen at the 
 state of affairs revealed by Kyffin, and he dispatched a memo- 
 randum to Ireland, giving the executive very clearly to under- 
 stand that any Captain who withheld pay from his men was to 
 be summarily executed. The Queen, at the same time, recalled 
 Russell in a scathing letter which was addressed not sojnuch 
 to him individually as to the entire Privy Council. ' We 
 mind not by this our letter," she wrote, " to express our opinion 
 
 * Kyffin to Burleigh, April 17th, 1507. 
 
 f Kyffln to Burleigh, Dec. 20th, 1500, and Feb. 18th, 1507.
 
 216 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 in whose default among you of our Council the same [abuses] 
 happen, being so notorious that it is apparent to the whole 
 world that never any realm was worse governed by all our 
 ministers, from the highest to the lowest."* Her letter con- 
 cluded with an injunction to all concerned to put a prompt 
 end to the prevalent rascality, which, if continued, she threat- 
 ened, will be " to your uttermost perils " words of very ominous 
 import under the reign of Good Queen Bess. 
 
 Following on the top of this letter came an order in December, 
 1596, for Gardiner (who was reputed the most honest of the 
 Irish officials) to attend the Queen in England. What passed 
 between the two is not known, but it is quite certain that 
 Gardiner's report did not tend to raise Russell in the Queen's 
 favour. " Sir William Russell has been debarred the Queen's 
 presence, "f Cecil wrote to Lord Burgh as late as the end of 
 June, 1597 ; so that it is clear that the Queen's displeasure 
 reflected no mere ephemeral mood. 
 
 Russell's recall, and the disgrace attached to it, left the 
 Dublin Privy Council unmoved. They were used to the sudden 
 fall in favour of Deputies, and were rather interested than 
 otherwise by the prospect of a change. Their chief concern 
 appears to have been over the character of the new-comer, 
 and as to the chances of his easy conformity with accepted 
 practices. As to this point they were not kept long in doubt. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Dec. 1596. f Cecil to Deputy, June 22nd, 1597.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Lord Burgh lands at Bray His agreement with Kyflin His determination to 
 suppress corruption Death of Norris Burgh's war preparations Sus- 
 picious conduct of Warren, Barrett Moore and St. Leger Burgh starts 
 for the north General consternation at the vigour of his preparations 
 Submission of Tirlough McHenry and Con O'Neil Burgh crosses the 
 Blackwater He repairs the Fort and burns Dungannon Forced to with- 
 draw from lack of provisions He advances once more in October Burgh 
 is taken ill at Newry His death Suspicion of poison William Paule's 
 accusation of Barrett Moore Post-mortem in Dublin Suspicious conduct 
 of Warren General relief in Ireland at Burgh's death Tyrone's special 
 reasons for relief Burgh's contract with the Scots Ineenduv's attempts 
 to cancel Firm attitude of Angus Death of Maurice Kyffin Death of 
 Henry Tudor Suspicion of foul play Sir Ralph Lane suspected Sir 
 Thomas Norris appointed Lord Justice His dissatisfaction Joint appoint- 
 ment of Loftus and Gardiner Ormonde appointed Lieut.-General of the 
 Army Rebellion of Shane McBrian and Neil McHugh Capture of Belfast 
 and Edenduffcarrick Their recapture by Sir John Chichester Sorley 
 Boy's sons overrun the Glynns They burn Glenarm and Red Bay They 
 raid Magee Island Battle of Altfracken Defeat and death of Chichester 
 Death of Capt. Merriman. 
 
 LORD BURGH landed at Bray on Whit-Sunday, 1597, 
 and was immediately pursued by a letter of final instruc- 
 tions from the Queen. Elizabeth knew that her choice of a 
 Deputy was a good one, but she had no intention that he should 
 be allowed to slip down to the level of his predecessors merely 
 for want of proper royal admonition. Burgh, to do him justice 
 and to his own undoing, was a thoroughly honest man, and was 
 equally determined with the Queen that the prevailing corrup- 
 tion should be stamped out, and that serious warfare should 
 henceforth take the place of the opera-bouffe performances of 
 the past five years. In a letter to Burleigh, written a fortnight 
 after his arrival, he gave it as his opinion no doubt as the 
 result of a careful examination of facts that Maurice Kyffin 
 was " a proper and diligent man," and concluded with the 
 hope that " some redress would be found for the frauds prac- 
 tised upon Her Majesty." In view of the subsequent develop- 
 ment of events, this letter has more than a passing interi'sl, 
 for it furnishes unmistakable evidence that Burgh and Kyffin 
 
 217
 
 218 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 were already in close agreement as to the procedure to be adopted 
 in the matter of the army frauds. In fact we have this in so 
 many words from Kyffin himself. " When I saw this shameful 
 abuse," he wrote to Burleigh, " I set down certain notes in writing 
 how to reform the same, the execution whereof the late Lord 
 Deputy said he would command publicly. But his Lordship 
 died before he had redressed any of these enormities. The 
 eternal God, by the means of your Lordship, grant some 
 amendment in time."* The amendment, however, when it 
 did come, was not destined to be seen by poor Kyffin, for, 
 within nine weeks of the date of his letter, he too had gone 
 the same way as Lord Burgh, to be followed very shortly after- 
 wards by his equally honest successor, Henry Tudor. It was 
 not without good grounds that he had written that " in Ireland 
 there is nothing more dangerous and detestable than to be an 
 honest man." 
 
 The Deputy was the first victim, for he was incomparably 
 the most dangerous of the three. In fact, without his strong 
 co-operation, the other two were powerless to do more than 
 expose and protest. Burgh's intentions in the matter were 
 public property, for he blurted them out with more honesty 
 than prudence. " This State," he wrote to Burleigh from the 
 Black water, " is infested with more hidden corruption in 
 every condition of man than ever any was ; "f and his further 
 intentions in the matter he makes quite clear in a letter to 
 Cecil written from the same camp. " I will be as good a 
 physician against their diseases as I can. I came a stranger 
 to them, and I could not imagine so bad and false a people. 
 I now know them, and God, I doubt not, will deliver me from 
 the burden of this business with profit to my blissful Queen." J 
 His concluding hopes were not destined to be realized. God 
 may have proposed such a consummation, but man disposed 
 otherwise. 
 
 Burgh had come over with absolute power, military as well 
 as civil, and his first act was to depose Sir John Norris, and 
 send him back to his Presidency of Munster, where he died 
 two months later at Mallow, in the house of his brother Thomas. 
 In justice to his memory, it is only fair to say that his failure 
 
 * Kyffin to Burleigh, Oct. 27th, 1597. 
 t Burgh to Burleigh, Sept. 10th, 1597. 
 % Burgh to Cecil, Aug, 3rd, 1597.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 219 
 
 to accomplish anything against Tyrone may, in some part, 
 have been due to ill-health. He was ill when he first landed 
 at Waterford, and, owing to his bad state of health, the two 
 wounds he received in County Armagh slight though they 
 were in themselves had not properly healed. He died of 
 gangrene. 
 
 Having got the army under his hand, Burgh next wrote 
 to Tyrone giving him one month in which to say his prayers. 
 The Earl, in an attempt to punctuate his contempt for this 
 ultimatum, made two successive raids upon Newry and Carrick- 
 fergus, but being repulsed in each case* missed his effect. 
 Burgh retaliated with a long letter of reproof written in fine 
 biblical language, and having eased his mind by the dispatch 
 of this document turned all his energies to the more persuasive 
 argument of armed activity. 
 
 The vigour of this determined Deputy's preparations alarmed 
 the members of the Dublin Privy Council little less than it 
 alarmed Tyrone himself, and they did their very utmost to 
 dissuade him from the northern^enterprise,f as to the serious 
 character of which there was no longer any room for doubt ; but 
 all their endeavours crumbled away before the dogged determina- 
 tion of the Deputy. It is fairly evident from Burgh's letters 
 home that even though at first innocent he very soon became 
 alive to the motives behind the objections of his Privy Council. 
 The disclosure of these motives disgusted though it did not dis- 
 turb him. Confident in his own integrity of purpose, he had little 
 fear that departmental villainy could, at the worst, do more 
 than hamper for a time the rapidity of his reforms. Besides, 
 it was not unreasonable to look forward, during his operations 
 in the field, to relief from the intrigues ot the Dublin Privy 
 Council, which was technically a stationary body. In this 
 expectation Burgh was justified, but he made a grievous mistake 
 if he had reckoned that, because the Privy Council was left 
 behind, all treachery and intrigue would be left behind with 
 it. It was with him at every step of his journey to the north, 
 frustrating his schemes, warning the rebels of his every in- 
 tention and deliberately misinterpreting his orders. These 
 hostile acts were chiefly associated at the time with the names 
 of three of Burgh's Captains, Sir Warham St, Leger, Garrett 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 199-66. 
 
 f Capt. Philip Williams to Cecil, Oct. 20th, 1597,
 
 220 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Moore and William Warren. Of these three, Moore and Warren 
 who were half-brothers* were the subject of some very 
 startling accusations, their first and foremost accuser being 
 one William Paule, an army contractor, who accompanied 
 the army as a fighting volunteer. According to Paule, Garrett 
 Moore and William Warren were, throughout Burgh's march 
 to the north, in ceaseless communication with Tyrone, warning 
 him beforehand of all intended moves.f These accusations of 
 Paule' s were afterwards corroborated from an entirely different 
 and independent source, as follows : Owen McHugh O'Neil 
 had been in command of one of Tyrone's companies during 
 the whole of Lord Burgh's Ulster operations, but he afterwards 
 came over to the Government side, and on July 17th, 1600, 
 he made a long written deposition, in the course of which he 
 stated that : " The said Garrett Moore and William Warren 
 did continually send men unto Tyrone to give him warning 
 when any service was intended against him."! 
 
 It is hardly conceivable that Burgh had actual proof of 
 these underhand practices, for in that case his course of action 
 would have been quite clear ; but he unquestionably had 
 strong suspicions, for we have it from yet another source that 
 during the ma'rch the Deputy on one occasion struck Warren 
 and told him that he might have to answer to charges which 
 would cost him his head. It is by no means improbable that 
 this speech may have precipitated Burgh's own end, for he 
 survived it but a short time. 
 
 We may now, however, deal with the actual facts of Burgh's 
 march to the north in chronological order. He set out from 
 Dublin at the beginning of July, leaving Loftus and Wallop 
 to carry on the Metropolitan Government, and marched to 
 Dundalk with all available forces, which amounted to a motley 
 gathering of 3,000 very mixed troops. However, it was the 
 determination of the Deputy rather than the quality of his 
 troops which was responsible for the universal dismay with 
 which his energetic action was viewed. Dublin officials, English 
 captains and Irish rebels were all alike infected with the general 
 alarm. We know this from a letter which one of the evil- 
 
 * Their mother had been a Brabazon. 
 
 f Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202, Part I.-17, and Vol. 207, Part V.-93. 
 j Cal. State Papers, July 17th, 1600, and Vol. 207, Part IV.-21, 
 Cal. State Papers, Vol. 203-58,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 221 
 
 doers (Warren) wrote to Norris on March 15th, i.e., before the 
 new Deputy had even landed. " The coming of the Lord 
 Burgh," he admitted, " had put them all in great fear,"* a 
 remark which seems equally to incriminate Norris, to whom it 
 was addressed, and the late Deputy, whose supersedure caused 
 such consternation. The minor chiefs were no less disturbed 
 than were the politicians and army captains by the reputation 
 which preceded the new Deputy, and, in their case, the effect 
 was magical. Before the new Deputy had so much as drawn his 
 sword, or struck a blow, Tyrone's half-brother Tirlough McHenry 
 of the Fews, and his illegitimate son Con, had tendered their 
 submissions, these being the two chiefs whose lands would in 
 the ordinary course have been the first to be reached by the 
 advancing army. Both these sudden converts to loyalty had 
 been consistent rebels throughout the Russell-Norris regime, 
 and their submission to the mere forecast of straightforward 
 dealing is a remarkable tribute to the efficacy of that quality 
 in Ireland. Nor was it a case of a half-hearted conversion. The 
 reputation which had preceded Burgh commanded admiration 
 and respect no less than it commanded fear. The half-brother 
 and the son of the Earl volunteered to assist the Deputy 
 against their troublesome relative with all the forces at their 
 command, the only stipulation in the case of the former being 
 that his son, who was still a pledge in Dublin Castle for the 
 good conduct of the Earl, should be released. Burgh un- 
 hesitatingly accepted a condition which was obviously in- 
 separable from the arrangement, and, acting on the advice of 
 his new Irish allies, he pushed on from Dundalk with all possible 
 speed, arriving at the Blackwater on the 14th. If Tyrone had 
 been any general, or if he had been gifted with even a fair 
 share of military valour, it was here that he would have made 
 his great effort. He had enjoyed many months of peace and 
 leisure wherein to perfect his defences, and of these months 
 he had taken full advantage. His artificial obstacles and 
 defences were, we are told, a marvel of elaboration, f and had 
 Tyrone, with his whole army, faced the Deputy from the left 
 bank of the river, it is hardly conceivable that the passage 
 could have been forced. Instead of this, he left forty men of 
 inferior rank to guard the ford, while he himself with his army, 
 
 * Warren to Norris, March 15th, 1597. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 200-29.
 
 222 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 and all his chief leaders, remained behind at a safe distance at 
 Dungannon. It is to be assumed that Tyrone reckoned that 
 forty men would be sufficient to check Burgh's progress long 
 enough to enable him to make his dispositions further north ; 
 and, indeed, Fenton himself admits that if the forty had shown 
 any spirit, they could have held the army up for a week.* 
 But they evidently had little relish for the task assigned them, 
 and, leaving the elaborate defences to take care of themselves, 
 they made for the woods behind, the moment the attack was 
 sounded, an offence for which Tyrone, who was himself always 
 the first to run away, afterwards hanged twenty of them.'j' 
 Even with no opposition, the passage of the river was a trying 
 and dangerous business, for, apart from the spikes with which 
 it was plentifully sown, the water was very high for the time of 
 year. Burgh himself was the first man into the water and 
 the second man across, wading over with the water above his 
 middle. His first business was very properly the reconstruc- 
 tion of the fort. This was, of necessity, a slow affair. During 
 the completion of the work Burgh pitched his camp on the 
 banks of the river, and from there made daily incursions into 
 the precincts of Tyrone's country. On one of these occasions 
 the Deputy's brother-in-law, Francis Vaughan, and Mr. Beres- 
 ford rode too far afield, and were ambushed and killed. During 
 another expedition of the same kind Captain Turner was killed 
 and two of Burgh's nephews badly wounded. Burgh was 
 very wrathful at these losses, and vented his spleen on Tyrone's 
 methods of warfare, which he stigmatized as underhand and 
 cowardly. " For as he is the dishonestest rebel of the world," 
 he wrote in high disgust to Cecil, " so is he the most cowardly, 
 never making good any fight, but bogring with his shot and 
 flying from bush to bush."J Several times Burgh sent out a 
 strong force, which paraded defiantly in the open in the hopes 
 of tempting the Earl to battle, but with signal lack of success. 
 As soon as the repairs to the fort were finished, Burgh 
 advanced his force as far as Dungannon, where he burned the 
 town and all Tyrone's flour mills (the Castle itself had been 
 burnt by Tyrone on the occasion of Norris's expedition), but 
 still without seeing the enemy. This was as far north as he 
 
 
 
 * Fenton to Cecil, July 15th, 1597. 
 
 t William Soare to Sir Ralph Lane, July 16th, 1597. 
 
 j Burgh to Cecil, Aug. 3rd, 1597.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 223 
 
 was destined to penetrate. Provisions began to run short, 
 and by the first week in August it became evident that a tem- 
 porary retirement to Newry was necessary if starvation were 
 to be avoided. From the purely military point of view the 
 withdrawal meant little, for, with the Blackwater Fort once more 
 in Government hands, the Deputy held the key with which he 
 could enter or leave Tyrone's territories at will. None knew 
 this better than Tyrone himself, and none knew better than 
 he that he was now face to face with the crisis of his career. 
 In these circumstances, and influenced no doubt by his chronic 
 unwillingness to face the ordeal by battle, the Earl, we are 
 led to believe, had recourse to other methods. There is very 
 little doubt that, with the connivance of his confederates in the 
 Government army, he caused the Deputy to be poisoned. 
 The Irish Annalists, indeed, do not disguise the fact, and refer 
 to it with even a tinge of pride. " The Lord Deputy," the Four 
 Masters record, '* met his death prematurely by O'Neil." 
 According to the tenets of the primitive law of retaliation, 
 Tyrone would not have been going outside his rights in making 
 away with the Deputy, for we know that Burgh himself had 
 recently guaranteed one thousand pounds reward to an 
 unnamed volunteer who had undertaken the assassination of 
 the Earl. Burgh, to do him justice, shows symptoms of shame 
 in the letter in which he discloses this fact to Elizabeth, but 
 takes refuge as the custom of the day was behind the 
 Almighty. Let us, however, follow the events in chronological 
 order. 
 
 Lord Burgh returned to Dublin in September, and at the 
 beginning of October advanced once more with his army to 
 Newry, provided this time with all the requisites which his 
 former experience had taught him the need of, but which the 
 antagonism of his counsellors had kept back from him when 
 he went north in July. The improvement in his present equip- 
 ment left little doubt in the minds of any of the interested 
 parties as to the certainty of his success, and he himself made 
 no secret of his own confidence. However, shortly after 
 leaving Newry, he was suddenly taken ill. In spite of the 
 intense pain he was suffering, such was his devotion to the 
 duty he had undertaken that he insisted upon being carried 
 in a litter with the advancing army. He got as far as the 
 Blackwater, but there his sufferings became too severe to be
 
 224 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 borne, and he had to return to Newry, where this gallant and 
 true man died on October 13th, after eleven days' illness.* 
 " One of the noblest gents that ever I knew," says Wallop in 
 a letter to Cecil, and there is nothing in the known facts to 
 make us doubt the justice of the epitaph. The cause of death 
 was officially returned as Irish ague, an obscure malady since 
 fortunately extinct, but there is very little doubt that he was 
 poisoned. The sequence of events, according to the testimony 
 of William Paule, was as follows : On the completion of the 
 first day's march after leaving Newry, Burgh, who was very hot 
 and thirsty, made inquiries as to where he could get a drink. 
 He was recommended to try Garrett Moore's tent, which 
 appears to have been the only luxury of the sort with the army, 
 Burgh himself being without anything of the kind. He did as 
 advised, and Garrett Moore himself ministered to his wants.f 
 He was immediately seized with internal cramp and great 
 coldness, from which he was never afterwards free till the 
 moment of his death. A post-mortem examination, which was 
 made in Dublin by Dr. Cullen, revealed various symptoms 
 strongly indicative of poison. J In view of the evidence fur- 
 nished by the autopsy, and in view of the curious suddenness 
 and peculiar circumstances surrounding the Deputy's death, 
 an inquiry was instituted in England, to which both Garrett 
 Moore's father, Sir Edward Moore, and William W T arren were 
 summoned. Nothing, however, was ever proved, and the 
 affair must remain one of the unsolved mysteries of history. 
 Attempts were made to discount the value of Paule's evidence 
 by pointing out that, at the time he made his accusations, he 
 himself was a prisoner in Dublin Castle on some charge con- 
 nected with his office. Paule, however, we learn, was acquitted 
 of the charges against him, and was reinstated in his office of 
 Commissary of Ulster without any loss of honour, so that 
 he may be safely accepted as a fairly responsible witness. 
 So general, however, was the relief in Ireland at Burgh's dis- 
 appearance from the scene, that the charges made against 
 Moore and Warren met with but little sympathy, and were 
 in the end allowed to drop. It is worthy of note, however, 
 
 * Loftus to Privy Council, Oct. 16th, 1597. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202, Part I.-17. 
 J Ibid. 
 Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202, Part II.-26.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 225 
 
 that Captain Thomas Williams since Merriman's death the 
 stoutest and truest of the English commanders in Ireland- 
 persisted to the end in his conviction that Burgh had been 
 poisoned.* The two Louth half-brothers were never definitely 
 convicted of having had a hand in Lord Burgh's death, or even 
 of the lesser crime .of giving information to the enemy, but it 
 is beyond all question that they were both on terms of the 
 very closest intimacy and friendship with Tyrone ; so much so, 
 indeed, that the latter's young son Shane was fostered and 
 brought up in the M cores' house at Mellif ont. In spite, however, 
 of this clear proof of intimacy, in spite of the knowledge that 
 Garrett Moore had helped Hugh Roe to escape from Dublin 
 Castle, in spite of Paule's accusations, in spite of the subsequent 
 accusations of Captain Tyrrell and of Lord Howth, both of 
 whom openly and publicly accused Garrett Moore of treason, f 
 and in spite of Loftus the Chancellor's repeated declaration 
 that Warren was a traitor to his Queen, neither the one nor 
 the other was ever brought to justice, and to the end they 
 both appear to have enjoyed the confidence of their Govern- 
 ment associates in Ireland. At the date of Lord Howth's 
 accusation against Garrett Moore in 1608, the latter was a 
 member of the Privy Council, and Chichester, who was Deputy 
 at the time, showed such evident reluctance to proceed to 
 extremities against him that it can only be assumed that the 
 two half-brothers had some special talisman that enabled them 
 to tread in safety passages that would have brought others to 
 the Tower or the block. 
 
 Paule's accusations against Moore and Warren did not stop 
 short at the charge of poisoning. He affirmed that, after 
 Burgh was taken ill, Garrett Moore sent word to Tyrone that 
 the army was so disorganized that it was a favourable moment 
 at which to attack it ; and further that, by arrangement with 
 the Earl, Garrett Moore himself led half the army into a pass 
 where an ambush had been previously laid, upon seeing which 
 the Deputy from his litter exclaimed : " Alas and woe is me, 
 my gracious Queen, how is thy service betrayed on all hands 
 in this country ; this is Garrett Moore's and Warren's doing. "J 
 It is satisfactory to be able to record that, in spite of the collu- 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202-17-2. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, James, 1608-683. See also Cal. State Papers, Dec. 
 13th, 1608. 
 
 J Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202-17-2. 
 
 15
 
 226 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 sion between the two leaders, the ambush in question failed, 
 owing to the chronic timidity of Tyrone, who, in spite of his 
 advantage of position, proved too irresolute to charge. 
 
 To what extent Tyrone and his accomplices among the 
 English Captains benefited by Burgh's death, and how his 
 straight dealing imperilled their secret gains, can best be 
 described in the language of contemporary writers. First, 
 as to Tyrone's more obvious interests. Here we can draw 
 once more on the deposition of William Paule, at any rate a 
 brave and true man, who was killed in action a year after 
 making his statement. Paule insists strongly upon the point 
 that Burgh's death was essential to the success of Tyrone's 
 schemes for the following reasons : " First, the brave resolution 
 of the Deputy, his audacity and forwardness in the execution of 
 all manner of martial service against the traitor, and his rounder 
 proceedings which threatened a short conclusion of the war, 
 and consequently the ruin of all rebels, not to be prevented 
 by temporizing sophistical dilatory circumvention or delays, 
 nor otherwise possible to be avoided, but either by battle, 
 which they will not abide, or else by violent means to be com- 
 mitted against the person of the Deputy." 
 
 In addition to the above motives, Tyrone had further reasons 
 for getting rid of Burgh, of which Paule probably knew nothing. 
 For many years past suggestions had been thrown out from 
 various well-informed quarters that the quickest and simplest 
 way to finish the war and reduce Tyrone to absolute sub- 
 jection was by the employment of a Scotch army. The chief 
 official opposition to this scheme had always come from Sir 
 Geoffrey Fenton, who never tired of representing to the Queen's 
 Counsellors the very grave danger of allowing the Scots to 
 establish a firm footing in Ulster. Fenton, of course, was 
 in Tyrone's pay, and he earned his pay by ceaselessly expa- 
 tiating on the Earl's real but unappreciated loyalty, and by 
 checking, in every other way that was open to him, the growing 
 tendency of the Queen towards drastic measures. When it 
 became no longer possible to maintain the fiction of Tyrone's 
 supposed loyalty, the Earl was officially dubbed Traitor with 
 a capital " T," and was so referred to in all future correspond- 
 ence ; but Fenton and others continued to earn their pay by 
 advocating periodical truces or cessations, as they were locally 
 called, for the ostensible purpose of allowing the penitent Earl
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 sufficient time to draw up a suitable submission. Since Tyrone 
 had become an avowed rebel, the indefinite prolongation of 
 these cessations had been the common aim of both English 
 officials and Irish chiefs, with results which the contemporary 
 historian describes as most disastrous. " The rebellion was 
 nourished and increased by nothing more than by the frequent 
 protections and pardons granted, even to those who had for- 
 merly abused this mercy, so as all entered and continued to 
 be rebels with assurance to be received to mercy at their 
 pleasure, whereof they spared not to brag ; and this heartened 
 the rebel no less than it discouraged the subject."* 
 
 With the advent of Burgh came the realization by both 
 chiefs and officials that the old order of things was doomed, 
 and that its place was to be usurped by a regime of dismal 
 rectitude, based on a quixotic desire to bring the rebellion to 
 a conclusion. This last was Burgh's avowed intention, and 
 his common sense quickly made it clear to him that the short 
 road to this end lay in the employment of the Scots in the 
 Queen's interest. Russell had submitted all Angus's offers of 
 service to the English Council, backed by his own recom- 
 mendations of acceptance, and in the end had brought the 
 English Privy Council round to his own way of thinking ;t 
 but the sustained opposition of Fenton and Norris had so far 
 been a bar to anything practical resulting. Burgh, however, 
 who had come over with far fuller powers than Russell, saw 
 no need to refer the matter to England at all. Acting entirely 
 on his own initiative, he signed an agreement under which 
 Angus's two sons, James and Angus Oge, were to bring over 
 two thousand Scots, Donald Gorm another two thousand and 
 Maclean one thousand, or as many more as he could raise. 
 These troops, by the terms of the agreement, were to be in 
 Ulster at the end of September, receiving as pay three hundred 
 pounds for every thousand men for the first month, after 
 which they were to be " cessed " upon the country. They were 
 also to be entitled to half the spoil taken. J In signing this 
 agreement Burgh had signed ihis^own death-warrant. His 
 signature on the paper furnished such irrefutable evidence of 
 his determination to end the war that all alike felt that such 
 
 * Fynes Moryson, Part II., Chapter II. 
 
 t Opinions of Privy Council, Dec. 26th, 1596. 
 
 j Cal. State Papers, Vol. 205-100. Fynes Moryson, Part II., Chapter II. 
 
 15*
 
 228 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 an uncongenial element must be got rid of. This step was 
 considered necessary, not only on the grounds of the Deputy's 
 impeccability, but also in order to bring about a cancellation 
 of the agreement with the Scots ; for there was not a single 
 leader, either English or Irish, in Ulster but knew that if thi ; 
 were carried through the doom of the rebellion was sealed. 
 
 In this emergency Ineenduv was sent over, as the repre- 
 sentative of the chiefs, to try and persuade her brother Angus 
 to repudiate the whole arrangement. She was commissioned 
 to offer him large sums of money not to send over the men 
 agreed upon. Angus, however, refused all her offers, declaring 
 that all he wanted was revenge on Tyrone for many wrongs, 
 the chief of which was his marriage with Magennis's daughter.* 
 Following on this, while she was over in Cantyre, came the news 
 of the Lord Deputy's death, and the whole arrangement auto- 
 matically fell to the ground. A sigh of relief now went up 
 from Howth Head to Tory Island. The danger that had 
 threatened the confederacy of interests was averted, and rebel 
 chiefs, Dublin officials and English Captains breathed again. 
 They did more than breathe again, they acted again. The 
 ease and safety with which the troublesome Deputy had been 
 got rid of encouraged an extension of the same methods towards 
 other troublesome persons of the same description. Within 
 less than three months of the Deputy's death Maurice Kyffin 
 met a similar fate, to be followed shortly afterwards by his 
 secretary and successor in office, Henry Tudor. In these last 
 two tragedies there is no evidence of Tyrone's complicity, nor 
 was it suggested that he was a party to the death of either. 
 Although he obviously had an a priori interest in the artificial 
 shrinkage of the English bands, there were others whose 
 interests, and whose very lives, indeed, were jeopardized by 
 the incriminating disclosures of the newly-appointed auditors. 
 The man chiefly affected, both in respect to pocket and reputa- 
 tion, was Sir Ralph Lane, the Master of the Musters ; and Bir- 
 kenshaw who on the successive deaths of Kyffin and Tudor 
 was appointed to their dangerous office more than hinted 
 that Lane caused the death of both his predecessors, and 
 would gladly make a third victim of himself.f 
 
 The known facts surrounding this singular case are by no 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 205-100. 
 
 t Birkenshaw to Cecil, Feb. 19th, 1600.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 229 
 
 means out of keeping with Birkenshaw's theory. Kyffin, in 
 his letters to England, had more than once made the definite 
 statement that there were plots afoot to kill him, and on 
 January 3rd, 1598, he died mysteriously after a short illness.* 
 The moment he was dead, Lane imprisoned Tudor his 
 secretary, f and used every conceivable threat, and many 
 brutalities, in his fervent desire to extract from the wretched 
 man the secret of where the dead auditor had kept his checks 
 of the Musters. " He was yoked to a post with an iron yoke 
 about his neck, and as many and more irons on his limbs as 
 he could bear, so that he might not possibly lie down."J 
 Neither bribes, nor threats, nor tortures, however, could open 
 Tudor' s lips, and, at length, after several weeks of the cruellest 
 treatment, a commission arrived from England which appointed 
 him the successor to his late employer. This commission was 
 his triumph, and at the same time his end, for within a few 
 months of his appointment he, too, died suddenly and 
 mysteriously. In the case of these two men there is no actual 
 evidence of foul play ; but it is singular, to say the least of it, 
 that the only three honest officials in Ireland should, within 
 the short limits of one year, have succumbed to the mysterious 
 malady known as Irish ague. There is also first-hand evidence 
 that, at the time at any rate, Kyffin and Tudor were supposed 
 to have been poisoned either directly by, or at the instigation 
 of, Lane. Ralph Birkenshaw, who filled Tudor' s place after 
 the latter' s death, more than hinted that both his predecessors 
 had been murdered. " For as he (Lane) dealt with Mr. Kyffin 
 and Henry Tudor, his man, whom he never left pursuing with 
 his discontent and hatred until death parted them, so he keeps 
 the like bias with me, and would willingly send me after 
 them." The reason for Lane's venom against these men, 
 and for his intense anxiety to get hold of the true checks of 
 the Musters, was because Kyffin' s disclosures had brought him 
 into such bad odour with the Queen that he was at one time 
 in some danger of losing his head. In his letter to Burleigh 
 of June 8th, 1597, he refers to " the heinous charges brought 
 against him," and thanks Burleigh for having saved him 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202-1. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202-22. 
 
 % Tudor to Burleigh, March 26th, 1508. 
 
 $ Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207-124.
 
 280 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 " from the deadly stroke of Her Majesty's indignation very 
 near to have fallen upon him," from which it is reasonable 
 to infer that Kyffin and Tudor' s audit had brought Sir Ralph 
 Lane into imminent peril, and might even have made a complete 
 end of him had not his two accusers been suddenly cut off. 
 
 Lord Burgh's death caused general joy in Ireland, but it 
 sadly embarrassed Elizabeth, who was sore put to it to find 
 a worthy successor to the dead Deputy. No such man pre- 
 sented himself at the moment, and to fill up the gap Sir Thomas 
 Norris was nominated Lord Justice of Ireland. Norris, who 
 was making a very good thing out of his Presidency of Munster, 
 was by no means too pleased with the proposed change in his 
 life, and wrote such pleading remonstrances on the subject to 
 Cecil, that he was finally allowed to go back to the more con- 
 genial rule of Munster. Loftus and Gardiner were then ap- 
 pointed Lords Justices, while Ormonde was given the entire 
 control of the army with the official rank of Lord Lieutenant- 
 General of Her Majesty's Forces in Ireland. 
 
 Nothing could have suited Tyrone better than this arrange- 
 ment. Loftus and Gardiner had long been in his pay, so that, 
 as far as the civil government was concerned, he had no fears. 
 Ormonde, however, was an unknown quantity. His path and 
 Tyrone's had so far not crossed, nor had their interests clashed. 
 Yet he was clearly the very first man to be propitiated if the 
 pleasant relations of the past were to be maintained. Tyrone 
 wrote to him in his usual strain, underlining his love for the 
 person of Her Majesty and his fundamental loyalty, and finishing 
 up with the usual petition for a two-months' truce. Ormonde, 
 in reply, gave no definite undertaking, but promised that he 
 would meet Tyrone at Dundalk in December and talk things 
 over. 
 
 Before, however, we come to this much-discussed interview 
 and its results, it would be well first to get level with contem- 
 porary events in the north of Ireland. The interest of these 
 is chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of Carrickiergus, 
 where, for some months past, things had been going very far 
 from well with the English. For twenty years past the two 
 North Clandeboye chiefs, Shane McBrian and Neil McHugh, had 
 been alternately rebellious and loyal. If Shane was in rebellion, 
 Neil at once became loyal, and vice-versa, the aim of each being 
 the acquisition of his cousin's lands. Encouraged, however, by
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 281 
 
 the impotence of Morris, and the consequent expansion of 
 Tyrone's tentacles, both these Clandeboye chiefs had simul- 
 taneously revolted about the time of Lord Burgh's arrival in 
 Ireland, and had joined forces with Brian McArt and Arthur 
 Magennis, with a view to dividing up the counties of Antrim 
 and Down between the four of them. The combination was, 
 however, heavily defeated in the field by Sir John Chichester, 
 who early in July had taken over the government of Carrick- 
 fergus. Under the impotence of the former regime, both the 
 principal fortresses in North Clandeboye had fallen into the 
 hands of the Irish, Shane McBrian being responsible for the 
 capture of Belfast, and Neil McHugh for that of Edenduff- 
 carrick. Of the capture of the first-named place, which was 
 in charge of Ensign Pullen, very grueome details are furnished 
 by Captain Egerton's servant, Anthony Bering, in a letter 
 which he wrote on the subject to Mrs. Egerton. " Pullen," 
 he wrote, " was as unfit a man as could have been chosen for 
 the place, who, under colour of his charge, robbed the people 
 and took their goods to maintain his drunkenness. When 
 Pullen was drunk at Carrickfergus, his own man, John Aboyless, 
 gave Belfast to the enemy on June 18th. All the English in 
 the garrison were hanged, their throats cut, and their bowels 
 cut out of their bellies by Shane McBrian. Next day, by 
 means of Captain Thornton, the Castle was retaken."* 
 Chichester corroborates the story as far as the killing of the 
 garrison is concerned, but the fort was not retaken, as Bering 
 affirms, next day, but three weeks later, on July llth. Thorn- 
 ton, as he correctly states, supplied the necessary boats from 
 his ship, and at high tide a landing was effected close to the 
 walls, and the garrison, taken completely by surprise, was easily 
 overpowered and all killed. f At the beginning of August, 
 Chichester followed up this success by retaking Edenduffcarrick. 
 This last achievement appears to have been highly creditable 
 to Chichester, who, in the assault, showed great dash and 
 personal courage, and who also gave evidence of considerable 
 organizing powers. These three successive defeats brought 
 Shane and Neil to their knees^ and in company with Neil 
 McBrian Feartagh who was at the best always a half-hearted 
 rebel they came into Carrickfergus, and there went down 
 
 * Anthony Bering to Mrs. Egerton, June 20th, 1597. 
 f Chichester to Burleigh, Sept. 16th, 1597.
 
 232 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER] 
 
 on their knees in the usual fashion of repentant rebels. 
 Chichester, being new to the country, was in some doubt as to 
 how he should deal with a man who had just disembowelled 
 an entire English garrison, and, in view of all the circumstances, 
 he thought it best to convey the whole party up to Dublin, 
 there to have their various crimes, claims, grievances and 
 quarrels properly adjudicated by others more conversant with 
 the ways of the country than himself. The Dublin award, 
 which seems curiously lenient under the circumstances, was 
 that Neil McBrian Feartagh, whose misdemeanours were of a 
 mild order, should be reinstated in the lordship of South 
 Clandeboye, but that the two grandsons of Phelim Bacagh 
 were for the time being to be incarcerated in Carrickfergus. 
 
 The adversity of the two North Clandeboye chiefs was always 
 the opportunity of the sons of Sorley Boy, and the brothers 
 James and Randall were not long in overrunning the now 
 derelict county of Antrim. They had already turned their 
 cousins out of the Glynns, and mindful perhaps of Donald 
 Gorm's threat to come back and annihilate them they now 
 completed their former work by demolishing the two Castles 
 of Glenarm and Red Bay,* so as, at all events, to make sure 
 that their avenging cousins should have no strongholds on 
 their return from which to start operations. 
 
 In spite of having added the Glynns to their landed estates, 
 neither James nor his brother Randall showed any disposition 
 to take up residence there. Possibly they reckoned the district 
 too near Carrickfergus for safety, or too easily assailable from 
 Cantyre, should Donald Gorm carry out his threat. At any 
 rate, they were content for the moment to destroy the Glynns 
 Castles, and to live exclusively at their picturesque and more 
 inaccessible stronghold of Dunluce, the natural impregnability 
 of which was enhanced by three pieces of brass ordnance, 
 taken from the wrecked Spanish ship Gerona, which peered 
 menacingly out from the ramparts. Here they awaited the 
 turn that events might take under the strange direction of a 
 Deputy who valued honour higher than personal gain. All 
 doubts on this score having been settled by his untimely fate, 
 James McSorley no longer hesitated, but openly declared him- 
 self on the side of Tyrone ; and, in order to cement the newly- 
 formed alliance, organized a raid in force on Magee Island, 
 
 * Chichester to Burleigh, Sept. 16th, 1597.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 283 
 
 now the property of Robert Earl of Essex. The raid, which 
 took place on November 1st, was entirely satisfactory from 
 the raiders' point of view. Elated with his success, Sir James 
 (he had lately been knighted by the King of Scotland) then 
 moved west, and, taking up a defiant position a mile or so to 
 the north-east of Carrickfergus, proceeded to indulge in a 
 series of provocative manoeuvres in full view of the garrison. 
 Such a direct challenge was too much for the patience of so hot- 
 blooded a warrior as Chichester. Leaving half the garrison 
 within the ramparts under command of Captain Charles Mansell, 
 he led out the remainder in the direction of the intruders. His 
 original intention was not to fight, but to inquire the business 
 of the Scots, and to request them to remove themselves to a 
 more convenient distance. On arriving within speaking dis- 
 tance, however, it was suggested to Chichester by Captain 
 Moses Hill, who was backed up by that redoubtable fighter, 
 Captain Merriman, that the Scots were in a very irregular 
 formation, and that the opportunity for a sudden and successful 
 charge should not be wasted. Chichester was only too ready 
 to accept such counsels, and, in spite of the grave warnings of 
 Captain Rice Mansell, at once led the attack. The Scots 
 appeared to give way, but kept up a Parthian fight for some 
 miles, alternatively standing and retiring, till the glen of 
 Altfracken* was reached. Here, in the thick scrub that 
 clothed the sides of the glen, five hundred Scots had been placed 
 in ambush, and these now opened a devastating fire on the 
 entrapped English.f Chichester received two wounds in the 
 body, and was finally shot through the head and fell dead 
 from his horse. Almost every officer in the party was either 
 killed or wounded. Captain Merriman, although wounded in 
 two places, managed to swim across the Olderfieet River, and 
 so escaped. Captains North and Moses Hill and Lieutenant 
 Barry were also among the survivors, and Captain Constable 
 was taken prisoner, but all the rest, including Captain Rice 
 Mansell, were killed. The total casualties approached two 
 hundred, and of the brave force that had sallied forth in the 
 morning, only twelve got back to Carrickfergus that night. 
 The next day, however, some fifty more, who had lain hidden 
 
 * Now the Old Mill Glen near Redhall. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 201-08-1.
 
 234 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 in reeds and rushes during the night, straggled back to the 
 safety of the town.* 
 
 The tale of disaster to the English did not end with the 
 slaughter at Altfracken, for shortly afterwards Captain Merri- 
 inan, while making his way to Dublin by sea, had the misfortune 
 to fall overboard and was drowned, to the unbounded jubilation 
 of Tyrone, who declared that he would sooner have Merriman's 
 head than the heads of any other forty English in Ireland 
 a remarkable tribute to the integrity and fighting qualities 
 of Captain Merriman. 
 
 * Egerton to Norris, Nov. 6th, 1507.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Meeting of Ormonde and Tyrone at Dundalk Ormonde's extraordinary con- 
 cessions Indignation of the Queen Mountjoy's opinion asked Captain 
 Lee accuses Ormonde of treason Lee's character Tyrone granted an 
 eight months' truce Desperate condition of the Blackwater garrison 
 Bagenal's relief expedition His defeat at Yellow Ford Plight of the 
 remnant of Bagenal's army Surrender of the Blackwater fort Tyrone's 
 magnanimity Disastrous effects of the Yellow Ford defeat Spread of 
 the rebellion. 
 
 WE can now return to the fateful interview between 
 the Earls of Ormonde and Tyrone, which it will 
 be remembered had been fixed for December. The Protestant 
 Earl of the south and the Roman Catholic Earl of the north 
 met at Dundalk as agreed, the former having the advantage 
 (or the disadvantage) of Sir Geoffrey Fenton at his elbow 
 throughout the proceedings that ensued. Tyrone, as usual, 
 conducted himself with considerable dignity, and, according 
 to the Bishop of Meath, who was present, delivered himself 
 of the following rare and admirable sentiments, as the justi- 
 fication for his rebellious attitude. " By the cross of this 
 sword," he declared, " I look neither for Spain nor Scotland 
 to help me, but I will not have it to be said that I should be 
 counted a perjured wretch to those that I am sworn to, and 
 to leave them in the danger." 
 
 The conference lasted four days. Tyrone's original demands 
 were for a two months' truce, and the restitution of O'Reilly 
 (who was ninety years of age) in the lordship of Cavan for the 
 remainder of his life. Ormonde's only condition was that 
 Tyrone should revictual the Blackwater fort during the con- 
 tinuance of the truce. These terms were practically agreed 
 to, and Tyrone was on the point of putting his signature to 
 the contract when Henry Hoveden pulled his sleeve and stopped 
 him.* After a whispered conference between the Irish chief 
 and his English Prime Minister, the following clause was added 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 302-89. 
 236
 
 236 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 to the treaty : that McMahon, Magennis, O'Hanlon, Maguire 
 and the two Clandeboye chiefs, Neil McBrian Feartagh and 
 Shane McBrian, should from that date on be Tyrone's urraghs 
 instead of the Queen's, the latter arrangement to be in per- 
 petuity. After a decent pretence of hesitation and discussion, 
 Ormonde yielded the point. 
 
 These concessions in effect amounted to a free gift to Tyrone 
 of every point for which the Queen had been so assiduously 
 fighting, with much expenditure of blood and treasure, for over 
 thirty years ; and, in the circumstances, it is not to be won- 
 dered at that Elizabeth's indignation, on receipt of the news, 
 was hardly to be restrained. Tyrone, conscious of having 
 gained every point for which he was out, scrupulously carried 
 out his part of the bargain, though by no means to the satis- 
 faction of the hungry Blackwater garrison, who complained 
 that the cattle he sent them were the thinnest ever seen, even 
 in Ulster. 
 
 More than ever had the Queen now cause to regret the death 
 of Lord Burgh and the necessity which, in consequence, was 
 once more forced upon her of entrusting her affairs to the hands 
 of intriguing politicians. She complained bitterly, but with 
 perfect justice, that for a few skeleton cows (probably stolen 
 from the English) Ormonde had sold all her interests in Ulster. 
 She further maintained, with equal justice, that there had been 
 no necessity for a parley of any description, as Ormonde had 
 sufficient troops at his disposal to have completely crushed 
 the rebellion, had he so willed. Ormonde's defence was that 
 his troops were physically incapable of undertaking a winter 
 campaign. " The bodies of the men," he wrote, " be so miser- 
 able in show as they resemble more prisoners, or men worn 
 out in body and mind with some hard affliction, than soldiers 
 fit to serve a prince." All this may have been as represented, 
 but the explanation failed signally to satisfy Elizabeth, and for 
 many a long day to come the ignominious treaty concluded 
 by Ormonde continued to rankle in her mind. It even survived 
 the effect of a very similar transaction carried out shortly after- 
 wards by her favourite Essex ; for we find her as late as 1601 
 writing to Mount joy who had been in Ireland at the time 
 of Ormonde's negotiations asking his opinion as to what 
 had actually taken place at the memorable Dundalk Confer- 
 ence. What actually took place on that occasion no one of
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 287 
 
 course could say, except the two Earls, Geoffrey Fenton and 
 Henry Hoveden, and these were not likely to make public 
 more than suited them. Mount joy replied in the following 
 enigmatical phrases : " The Earl of Ormonde's parley, I vow 
 on my allegiance to God and you, was without my privity ; 
 and so much have I distasted the like in others that, before 
 this accident, I had forbidden it to private captains, and no 
 rebel hath ever yet spoken to myself but on his knees. But 
 if I may presume to yield unto Your Majesty a just excuse 
 for the President of Munster [Ormonde], as it was not in his 
 power to hinder the Earl's parley, so his intention to be present 
 was to do you service by discovering in his manner many 
 jealousies conceived upon good grounds and of great conse- 
 quence to Your Majesty."* 
 
 Ormonde's most persistent accuser over the matter of the 
 conference was Captain Thomas Lee, the value of whose state- 
 ments was considerably discounted by the fact that, at the 
 time they were made, he was himself lying in Dublin Castle 
 under a charge of treason. Lee, who was the younger son of 
 a very good Cheshire family, was twice tried for treason, but 
 on each occasion acquitted, mainly owing to the good offices 
 of influential friends in England, of whom Essex was not the 
 least. He was a man of remarkable personal courage, and 
 of very high military capacity, but was strongly suspected 
 by many of treasonable complicity with the rebels. His 
 bitterest enemy was Fenton, and his most consistent apologist 
 Lane. He was finally executed in the Tower for a mad attempt 
 to seize the person of the Queen during Essex's abortive 
 revolution. 
 
 The substance of Lee's accusation was that Tyrone and 
 Ormonde were in reality partners in the rebellion, the arrange- 
 ment being that Tyrone's son Hugh was to marry Ormonde's 
 daughter, and that the two Earls were to divide up Ireland 
 between them, Tyrone ruling north of Boyne and Ormonde 
 south of it. This may all have been fiction, but that which 
 stands out as solid fact is that Ormonde subsequently extended 
 Tyrone's two months' truce for a further eight months, without 
 exacting any compensating concessions from the rebel Earl, 
 and, indeed, without stipulating that Tyrone should continue 
 to supply the Blackwater fort with provisions. This eight 
 
 * Cotton Collection.
 
 288 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 months' extension can by no apologetic ingenuity be con- 
 strued otherwise than as a deliberate betrayal of the Queen's 
 interests, for, while the Blackwater garrison was gradually 
 starving, Tyrone had eight months' guarantee of immunity 
 from molestation, during which to make preparations for the 
 overthrow of the relieving expedition which he knew must 
 sooner or later be sent. As has already been explained, Tyrone's 
 only real concern in military matters was over the Blackwater 
 fort. It was to him what Constantinople was to Disraeli, the 
 key-position, the sacred inviolability of which overshadowed 
 all outside considerations. That the eight months' extension 
 of the truce to which Ormonde agreed was sought by Tyrone 
 with the sole object of getting the Blackwater once more into 
 his hands is beyond the range of doubt. For ten months from 
 the date of Lord Burgh's death, hostilities had ceased by arrange- 
 ment with the Queen's acting representatives. During the last 
 eight months of that period the Blackwater garrison had to 
 subsist as best it could. By the end of the ten months it was 
 in the last extremities of starvation, subsisting wholly on the 
 roots and plants that grew on the ramparts of the fort.* Then 
 at last the tardy relief expedition was organized, and by that 
 time Tyrone was sufficiently strong to inflict on the English 
 the worst defeat they had yet sustained in Ireland. This 
 happened in August of the following year, 1598. 
 
 On the 12th day of that month Sir Henry Bagenal, the 
 Marshal, rode out of Newry at the head of 3,500 foot and 500 
 horse for the long delayed relief of the Blackwater fort. 
 Armagh was reached without opposition, and on the 14th 
 the army set out on the final stage of its journey. About 
 two miles north-west of Armagh, in a thickly-wooded spot 
 near the Callan River, locally known as the Yellow Ford, the 
 further progress of the army was found to be barred by a deep 
 trench over a mile in length, which was flanked on either side 
 by impassable bogs. Bagenal had divided his force into six 
 regiments, which marched in column, with very long intervals 
 between the respective regiments a formation which was 
 afterwards severely criticized. Captain Percy, who commanded 
 the leading regiment, attacked the trench with great gallantry, 
 and actually succeeded in capturing it, but he then found him- 
 self completely isolated, and surrounded by vastly superior 
 
 * Cox : " Hibernia Anglicana."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER M9 
 
 numbers of the enemy. Had Bagenal, who was personally 
 present with the second regiment, promptly come up to his 
 support, there can be little doubt that the advantage originally 
 gained would have been maintained. But Bagenal did not 
 come up, except after a long delay. Personal courage had never 
 been the Marshal's strong point ; in fact it is not too much to 
 say that he was found deficient in that quality on every occasion 
 when the test was put. Captain Lee had gone so far, after 
 Bagenal' s somewhat hurried retirement from the Battle of 
 Glenarm, as to say that the Marshal " was ever held of the world 
 to be a man of most cowardly behaviour." At the Yellow Ford, 
 however, he was destined to make full reparation for all such 
 alleged shortcomings-, for, when he did ultimately arrive on the 
 scene, he was at once shot through the head and killed. This 
 was only the beginning of a series of further disasters. The 
 brass saker which accompanied the column stuck fast in a 
 bog ; all the oxen dragging it were shot, and it could by no 
 means be extricated. To add to the misfortunes of the Govern- 
 ment troops, two barrels of gunpowder exploded, killing a 
 number of men and throwing such as were not killed into 
 hopeless confusion. The new English levies behaved very 
 badly, and all the Irish went over to the enemy the moment 
 they saw which way the tide was setting. The end of it all 
 was that Bagenal' s force was utterly routed with very heavy 
 loss. Bagenal himself, and Captains Evans, Morgan, Turner, 
 Street, Leigh, Ellesdon, Banks, Petty, Henshaw, Bethel, For- 
 tescue and Hawes were killed, as was also Mulmore O'Reilly, 
 who, as the Government candidate for Cavan, was on the 
 English side.* Ormonde, in writing to the Privy Council, 
 placed the total losses at 15 Captains, 9 lieutenants, 5 ensigns 
 and 855 rank and file. It is interesting to note that the names 
 of Captains William Warren and Garrett Moore do not appear 
 in the list of casualties. On the other side two of Art 
 McBaron'sf sons were killed and a nephew of James McSorley, 
 but the total losses were small by the side of those of the 
 English. Tyrone himself was not present at the fight, the 
 three generals opposed to Bagenal being Hugh Maguire and 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202, Part III.-20-1 ; also 28-3 and 84-1. 
 t Art McBaron does not appear to have had any special military capacity 
 himself, but his sons had a great reputation. Brian McArt was reckoned by 
 Chichester to be by far the ablest leader on the Irish side, and his much younger 
 half-brother Owen Roe made a considerable reputation as a general.
 
 240 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Hugh Roe O'Donnell in command of the Irish, and James 
 McSorley in command of the Scots. Tyrone's absence from the 
 Yellow Ford battle-field did not prevent the Irish panegyrists 
 from giving full scope to their imaginative talents in a patriotic 
 effort to do him honour. In a special epic written for the 
 occasion, they credited him with having killed 50,000 of the 
 English in the battle, taken 3,000 principal captains prisoners, 
 and set free 2,000 notable Ulster chiefs.* 
 
 The remnants of Bagenal's army, numbering some 1,500, 
 found their way back as best they could to Armagh, where 
 they fortified themselves in the Great Church, and prepared 
 to resist a siege. Tyrone, however, whose military ambitions 
 never aimed further than the demolition of the Black water 
 fort, was content to utilize the predicament of the Govern- 
 ment force for the furtherance of the one object which he 
 kept ceaselessly before his eyes. The demoralized mob shel- 
 tering in Armagh church was wholly at his mercy. They were 
 for the most part without arms, and wholly without leaders. 
 Tyrone, with the vast concourse of armed men that had gathered 
 to his standard since his victory, had only to attack the church 
 vigorously in order to annihilate those within. The usual 
 engine in such cases was fire. The victorious rebel, however, 
 was content to hold the beleaguered 1 % 500 under his hand as a 
 cat holds a captive mouse. His irreducible terms were the 
 surrender of the Blackwater fort. If this were yielded, he 
 undertook that the rabble in the church should be allowed 
 to make its way back unmolested to Newry. If it was not 
 yielded they should all die. It seems strange that a handful 
 of starved men in a fort with mud Walls now cut off from all 
 hope of relief should be more difficult of capture than a church 
 packed tight with 1,500 men ; but it must be remembered that 
 the assault of fortified strongholds was a form of fighting to 
 which the Irish were not accustomed, and which it was difficult 
 to get them to undertake. Tyrone had already made one 
 attempt, with all his available forces, to capture the Blackwater 
 fort by assault, but with very unsatisfactory results,f and it 
 is more than probable that he was unable to persuade his men 
 to a second attempt, which he most certainly would not have 
 led himself. The rabble in Armagh church, on the other hand, 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, James, 1608-218. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202, Part 11-105.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 241 
 
 was entirely destitute of any effective means of self-defence. 
 If its destruction had been determined upon it could easily 
 have been accomplished, without risk to the assailants, by 
 the simple process of setting fire to the church, which was the 
 method usually adopted in such cases. 
 
 So very clear did this appear to the men of the beleaguered 
 force at Armagh that they sent an urgent message to Captain 
 Williams imploring him to save all their lives by surrendering 
 the Blackwater fort to the Earl.* At the same time, the Dublin 
 Privy Council wrote to Tyrone in the most abject strain pleading 
 for his forbearance. A more undignified and humiliating 
 production can hardly be conceived, nor would such a letter 
 have been possible from any but from such as were in close 
 and constant touch with the man whom, in their letters to 
 London, they never failed to allude to as " the Traitor." 
 
 Elizabeth's comments on this famous letter were scathing 
 in the extreme. " You of my Council," she wrote, " framed 
 such a letter to the Traitor after the defeat as never was read 
 the like, either in form or substance, for baseness," f a verdict 
 with which no one who has the curiosity to turn up the docu- 
 ment in question is likely to disagree. The whinings of the 
 Privy Council were, as things turned out, unnecessary, for 
 Captain Williams yielded to the supplications of the terrified 
 mob in Armagh church, and gave up the Blackwater fort to 
 Tyrone ; who thereupon faithfully carried out his side of the 
 compact, and allowed the remnant of Bagenal's defeated 
 army to return to Newry unscathed. Tyrone's own explanation 
 of an act of magnanimity, which was certainly unusual in 
 sixteenth- century warfare, was that now that Bagenal was 
 lead and the Blackwater fort in his own hands he had no 
 special grudge against the rest of the English, and he was par- 
 ticularly anxious to disband his own forces, which cost him 
 500 a day so long as they were concentrated for action in the 
 field. 
 
 The whole incident tends to accentuate the peculiarly defen- 
 sive character of Tyrone's rebellion. Only once, prior to the 
 arrival of the Spaniards, did he take the offensive against the 
 Government forces ; nor did he at any time show a disposition 
 to be aggressive or rebellious in the strict sense, except in the 
 matter of the Blackwater fort, the occupation of which by the 
 
 * Fynes Moryson. f Queen to Privy Council, Sept. 12th, 1598. 
 
 16
 
 242 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Government troops was the point at which his indifference 
 broke. Outside of that one contentious point he aimed only 
 at immunity from interference in his dealings with the minor 
 chiefs from whom he extracted his enormous income. In order 
 to gain this financial advantage, he was content to dispense 
 his own and Spanish money with a lavish hand among the civil 
 and military officers of the Government. He seems to have 
 attached supreme importance to the inviolable privacy of the 
 county of Tyrone. The establishment of a Government post 
 at Blackwater he regarded not only as a standing menace 
 to the sanctity of his dominions, but as a slur on his dignity 
 as the O'Neil. It was equivalent in his eyes to the installation 
 of a jailer in the entrance lodge to his private park. The 
 moment, however, that this thorn was extracted from his flesh, 
 either by his own efforts or by the complacency of the English 
 officials, his active hostility towards the Government auto- 
 matically ceased. 
 
 The immediate effect of the Yellow Ford victory was as 
 may easily be imagined to enormously increase Tyrone's 
 prestige and to give to the general revolt against English 
 rule a stimulus hitherto undreamt of. The spirit of rebellion 
 quickly overflowed the boundaries of Ulster and Connaught. 
 In Leix and Offally 2,000 O'Moores and O'Connors armed 
 themselves, with noisy demonstrations, and flew the ascendant 
 flag of rebellion. A suddenly-inspired patriot named Donnell 
 Spainagh placed himself at the head of a four-figure army in 
 Wexford, and even as far south as Munster the infection took 
 hold of Lord Mountgarrett,* who got together a force of 2,000 
 rebels, and invited Tyrone's son Con to come down and place 
 himself at their head. 
 
 * Mountgarrett's eldest son, Richard Butler, vraa married to Tyrone's daughter.
 
 Increasing power of Tyrone His army estimated at 30,000 Essex lands in 
 Dublin His expedition to the south Essex's renewal of Lord Burgh's 
 contract for Scots His expedition to the north Conference with Tyrone 
 at Anaghclint Suspicious features of the conference Ingratitude of 
 Essex and Tyrone Essex's revolutionary schemes Sir William Warren's 
 disclosures Essex leaves for England His appearance at Nonsuch His 
 arrest and trial Removal of Sir Arthur Chichester Sir George Carey's 
 protest Essex's revolution His death. 
 
 WITH the military forces in Ireland hopelessly dis- 
 organized, with no responsible head to the Govern- 
 ment, with the official representatives of law and order them- 
 selves notoriously unworthy of respect, and with the ball 
 of fate to all appearance at the feet of an exuberant rebellion, 
 the outlook of the century's penultimate year was about as 
 bad as it could be. There is a philosophic cult which holds 
 that to every country no less than to every individual is meted 
 out the exact fortune deserved. If this is sound philosophy, 
 then Ireland's political misfortunes in the sixteenth century 
 would appear to have been no more than the natural outcome 
 of the general low level of social morality throughout the 
 country. It is probable that this level was never lower even 
 in Fitz william's day than it was at the close of the year 
 1598. Every man worked solely for his own profit. Neither 
 public not private morality had any existence in fact. Religion 
 was merely a pretext for the endowment of indolent and evil- 
 living State-pensioners. Justice was only to be had by pay- 
 ment ; when both sides paid, the highest bidder won. No 
 man trusted another, and, like jackals snarling over a carcass, 
 each plunderer grudged his neighbour a share that might other- 
 wise have come his own way. An anonymous lament over the 
 general decadence, published in 1598, gives the following 
 curious description of contemporary society in Ireland :* 
 
 " Notwithstanding many wise, godly and virtuous, yet 
 
 * See also Appendix A to Introduction Carew MSS., 1580-1000. 
 
 43 1 6*
 
 244 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 there were out of England traitors, murderers, thieves, coseners, 
 coney-catchers, shifting mates, runners-away with other men's 
 wives, some having two or three wives, persons divorced living 
 loosely, bankrupts, carnal gospellers, papists, puritans, Brown- 
 ists. . . . One great fault they find in the President of the 
 Province [Sir Thomas Norris] is that, if there be just cause 
 of complaint against the Irishry, the President, laying aside 
 English sympathies, favours the Irish more than the English 
 because he [sic] brought somewhat in his hand and the English 
 came empty and empty he went away. All the mischief." 
 the writer continues with some inconsequence, " cometh 
 from the high Prelates. Such Archbishops, Bishops, Deans 
 and men of unworthy dignities as no kingdom hath the like, 
 very few learned and reverent ; of the rest some weavers, some 
 tapsters and men of occasion out of England, others mere 
 Irish having neither learning nor honesty, going in mantles 
 and Irish trooses, tippling of ale and aqua-vitee, getting of 
 bastards and never giving themselves to study or preaching. 
 What shall I say of the baser sort of priests, English and Irish 
 all alike, for the most part lewd and ignorant ? A scholar 
 meeteth one of them and saith, ' Come out of the ale-house, 
 Domine.' He, thinking it was ' quomodo vales Domine,' an- 
 swereth ' Ago [sic] tibi gratias.' Richard Meredith, Bishop of 
 Leighlin, being charged by an honourable gentleman, Mr. 
 Thornborow then newly come from England to be Bishop 
 of Limerick that there was found great fault with him for 
 breach of promise, answered, ' My Lord of Limerick, when you 
 have been here a twelve-month, no man will believe one word 
 that you speak.' Shameless dealings have shameless answers, 
 and such was the corruption of the times. The Bishops have 
 winked for gain at laymen, children, their own kindred and 
 household servants. Fourthly and lastly the corruption of 
 the Government, magistrates and council in general hath caused 
 this plague [the rebellion]. The Irishry desireth no better 
 than a bad cause and a great bribe to give ; than doubteth 
 he not that he shall speed, and such is the nature of them that, 
 when they have corrupted any, they will be first that will 
 betray it." 
 
 Lord Mount joy, on his arrival in Ireland in 1600, gave his 
 own explanation of the degraded state of society in a " dis- 
 course " which he published the same year. " The reason
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 245 
 
 why," he writes, " council, clergy and English inhabitants 
 in this kingdom have been noted of so corrupt a disposition 
 when they live here is because, for the most part, they are in 
 all three kinds such as England rather refuseth." 
 
 Pari passu with the steady decadence of official rectitude 
 in Ireland, was the equally steady expansion of the power 
 and prestige of the Earl of Tyrone, and by the spring of 1599 
 the tide of his fortunes may be said to have reached its high- 
 water mark. He was at that time reckoned to have at his 
 disposal an army of 30,000 well-armed men. The Government 
 army nominally numbered 16,000, but its actual effective 
 strength was not more than half that figure. If Tyrone's attitude 
 had been aggressively ambitious, the moment had arrived 
 when he undoubtedly could have shaken Elizabeth's rule in 
 Ireland to its very foundations. But never do we find this 
 curious rebel really rebelling, and even now, with the forces 
 of occupation disorganized, apathetic and wholly venal, he 
 was content to sit down in the enjoyment of pleasantly-corrupt 
 relations with his nominal enemies. 
 
 The rebellion had, in fact, by this time developed into a 
 gigantic conspiracy between the Irish, and the English residents 
 in Ireland, for extracting money out of the two monarchs who 
 financed their respective causes. The Irish defrauded the King 
 of Spain, the English defrauded the Queen of England. The 
 periodical subsidies, which the former provided for the further- 
 ance of the war with England, were used by Tyrone for the 
 purpose of buying peace from England ; while the money which 
 Elizabeth was being ceaselessly called upon to find for the 
 maintenance of an army which existed mainly on paper, was 
 utilized by her officers for any other purpose rather than that 
 of prosecuting the war. And so the rebellion dragged on and 
 on in uneventful monotony. Of honour, of chivalry, or of 
 any of the nobler qualities of man there was on neither side any 
 trace. The lower natures of all alike ran riot in a perpetual 
 orgy of treachery and greed. " The wars," wrote the Arch- 
 bishop of Cashel, " are more fruitful and sweeter to the 
 governors, many great lords, captains and officers than 
 the peace,"and thereby the same must continue." 
 
 Such was the state of things when in April, 1599, Robert 
 Devereux, Earl of Essex, landed in Dublin, after an extremely 
 bad crossing, carrying with him a special commission from the
 
 246 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Queen to substitute straight ways for crooked. Essex's first 
 move was not a happy augury for the future, and was in fact 
 so extraordinary, in all the circumstances, as to raise, from the 
 very first, suspicions in the Queen's mind as to the honesty 
 of purpose of her new representative. Having been sent over 
 with the special object of crushing Tyrone's rebellion in Ulster, 
 he wasted the entire spring and early summer of the year in 
 a pyrotechnic tour of the south, where he accomplished nothing 
 of the very slightest military importance. Essex himself 
 laid the blame of this wasted expedition on the Privy Council, 
 and probably with justice, urging in extenuation of his error 
 that, with his inexperience of the country, he could not well 
 do otherwise than follow the advice of those who had lived 
 there so many years. The letter in which he put foiward this 
 excuse was convincing and full of admirable sentiments. No- 
 thing, in fact, could have been more in keeping with the spirit 
 which the Queen was seeking to encourage, than the tone of 
 all Essex's earlier letters to her. His first letter was quickly 
 followed by another, equally plausible, in which he dwelt sadly 
 on the general prevalence of corruption among the officials, 
 and on the weakness and insufficiency of the English garrisons. 
 On the other hand, he made no secret of the immense advantage 
 which any commander in the field who took the initiative, 
 must derive from the inherent reluctance of the Irish to fight 
 in the open ; so that, if only dangerous passes were avoided, 
 any objective could be reached without danger of opposition. 
 Finally, he expressed the unshakable conviction that he, and 
 he alone, was the man to carry things through to a successful 
 issue on the above lines.* This last was a covert hit at Charles 
 Blount, Lord Mount joy, the Queen's latest favourite, who had 
 very nearly succeeded in capturing the post of Lord Lieutenant 
 of Ireland now held by Essex. The latter's faction, however, 
 had proved the stronger of the two, and Mount joy's govern- 
 ment of Ireland was to the Queen's infinite misfortune de- 
 ferred. 
 
 It was not till August had very nearly seen its last day, 
 that Essex found himself free to devote his energies to the 
 subjugation of the irrepressible Tyrone. Then as far as surface 
 appearances went he acted with becoming decision. One of 
 his first acts was to renew Lord Burgh's contract for the supply 
 
 * Fynes Moryson.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 347 
 
 of 5,000 Scots. Angus himself was in prison placed there by 
 his mutinous sons with whom Essex completed the arrange- 
 ment.* Having by this admirable stroke provided himself 
 in prospect with an efficient army, he then set out from Dublin, 
 on August 28th, at the head of the motley gathering which 
 represented the argument of brute force in Ireland. Loutfr 
 was reached on September 4th, and, at Sir Edward Moore's 
 house at Mellifont, those three gravely-suspected officers, 
 Captains Garrett Moore, William Warren and Thomas Lee, 
 joined the staff of the Lord Lieutenant. On the following 
 day the army got as far as the borders of Essex's own Barony 
 of Farney without meeting with any actual opposition.f 
 
 As soon, however, as Louth was left and the precincts of Ulster 
 were entered, Tyrone put in an appearance with a sufficiently 
 imposing force, which, for three days, marched pari passu with 
 the Lord Lieutenant's army, but without in any way attempting 
 to molest it. Indeed there was no reason why he should do 
 so, for, during the whole of the three days in question, Captains 
 Moore, Warren and Lee were going backwards and forwards 
 between the two armies with friendly communications, but 
 not, as in Lord Burgh's case, without the knowledge of their 
 commander. J As a result of these preliminary negotiations, 
 Henry O'Hagan came in on September 7th with a formal 
 request for a parley. The proposal was that the two com- 
 manders should meet on the following day at the Ford of Anagh- 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 205-100. It is not quite clear from the evidence 
 of the State Papers whether Essex actually renewed this contract or whether 
 he merely pretended to have done so. 
 
 t The Barony of Farney in County Monaghan had been escheated to the 
 Crown on the suppression of Shane's rebellion, and in 1575, Walter, Earl 
 of Essex, obtained a grant of these lands, which meant, in plain English, 
 that the chief paid head-rent to Essex instead of to the Crown, as would 
 otherwise have been the case. In the case of Farney the rent paid was 
 200 a year, and was practically a present from the Queen to Essex of that 
 amount. The granting, however, of Ulster lands to English non-resident land- 
 lords, prior to the great Plantation, added very greatly to the difficulties 
 and complications of Government. In 1592 Essex's son Robert gave a three 
 years' lease of the lands to John Talbot, to the great indignation of Ever MeCooley 
 Mahon, the native feudal chief, for by this arrangement Talbot became the 
 secondary lord in place of himself. MeCooley spent six months in England 
 representing the hardship of his case, but it does not appear that he obtained 
 any redress. On the death of Earl Robert, however, he quietly resumed occu- 
 pation of the lands, nominally under the young Earl, and with such good results 
 that in 1608 Ever MeCooley was reported to be wealthier than all the rest of 
 his name (McMahon) combined. [See Sir John Davies' " Historical Tracts."] 
 Ever died in 1017, after which his son Brian paid 1,500 a year for Farney. 
 
 % Fynes Moryson. 
 
 $ Cal. State Papers, Vol. 205-164.
 
 248 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 clint on the River Lagan. Essex made very little pretence 
 of hesitation, having, as afterwards transpired, the very best 
 of reasons for wishing to come to close quarters with the rebel 
 Earl. 
 
 Accordingly, on the following day Essex, accompanied by the 
 Earl of Southampton, Sir George Bourchier and Sir Warham 
 St. Leger, rode to the appointed place, where Tyrone was already 
 awaiting them. Conversation at the first was carried on under 
 considerable difficulties, owing to the noise of the intervening 
 stream, and, after a time, Tyrone, finding that little progress 
 was being made, rode his horse up to its girths in mid-stream, 
 and from there, with bared head and hat in hand, delivered 
 himself of the following speech : " Sithens it is not unknown 
 unto your Lordship how I married the sister of Sir Henry 
 Bagenal, and living together, because I did affect two other 
 gentlewomen, she grew in dislike with me, forsook me and went 
 unto her brother to complain upon me to the Council of Ireland, 
 and did exhibit articles against me. Upon this they sent for 
 me, and, because I came not at their first sendings, they pro- 
 claimed me traitor before I never meant to go out, and so then 
 I had no choice remaining but to go out and save my head."* 
 It is not to be supposed that the recital of this exhumed fragment 
 of ancient history had any effect upon Essex or his staff, all of 
 whom must have known that it was in substance quite untrue. 
 Tyrone was not proclaimed traitor till fully two years after 
 Mabel Bagenal had left him, and then not in connection with 
 any sworn depositions or secret information laid against him by 
 his wife or any one else, but because of his own overt act of 
 aggression in attacking, and causing a number of casualties 
 to, the Monaghan relief column. Having dealt with his domestic 
 troubles, Tyrone then branched off into another line of argu- 
 ment. He declared himself to be fighting in the good cause of 
 the one and only true religion, of which he was the chosen 
 champion. At this Essex laughed very derisively. " Reli- 
 gion ! " he cried, " hang me up, Tyrone; you care no more for 
 religion than my horse. "f Tyrone's reply is not recorded, 
 from which it is not unreasonable^ to assume^that^he^himself 
 joined in the general laugh. 
 
 Nothing of any political consequence transpired on this the 
 first day of the meeting, but it was arranged that the two 
 * Trevelyan Papers. t " Essex's Defence : " Fynes Moryson,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 340 
 
 principals should meet again on the following day unattended 
 on either side. At Essex's subsequent trial his participation 
 in this secret conference was one of the most serious charges 
 levelled against him. The Attorney-General submitted that 
 " the parley was suspicious in that it was private and secret, 
 no man suffered to approach, but especially no English."* 
 The practical outcome of the privacy thus afforded was so 
 startling as to raise serious doubts as to Essex's sanity. In the 
 lace of the Queen's explicit instructions and on the top of his 
 own very recent and admirable letters, in which he promised 
 the relentless and uninterrupted pursuit of the rebel Earl, 
 he now guaranteed the same rebel Earl that he should not be 
 molested until the May-day following, i.e., for nearly eight 
 months from the date of meeting. 
 
 This meeting at Anaghclint between the English and the Irish 
 Earl was not only productive of very far-reaching results, but 
 it had also some curious features outside of politics. Both the 
 Earls concerned owed everything they had in the world to the 
 favour of the Queen. Tyrone she had educated and maintained 
 at her own expense until he came of age, after which she had 
 severely strained poor Tirlough Luineach's loyalty by depriving 
 him of half his territories and handing them over to the favoured 
 young Baron a high-handed act of partisanship which practi- 
 cally assured the latter' s succession to the chiefry. 
 
 Essex's high position, no less than Tyrone's, was the out- 
 growth of Elizabeth's personal favour. His father Walter had 
 died when Robert was a boy of ten, leaving an utterly bankrupt 
 estate, debts of 35,000, and a son whom, with his last breath, 
 he commended to the care and royal patronage of the Queen. 
 Elizabeth responded nobly to the trust. Young Essex was, in 
 quick succession, given high commands in Flanders, France 
 and Spain. He was in turn created Master of the Horse, 
 Master of Ordnance, and finally, in 1597, Earl Marshal of 
 England. After the death of his stepfather Leicester in 1587, 
 he succeeded to that great man's place as Elizabeth's most 
 confidential favourite. The climax of his ambitions was reached 
 when he succeeded in defeating the candidature of Mountjoy 
 for the Lord Lieutenancyjjof Ireland. 
 
 At Anaghclint these two men, who had in each case been 
 raised by Elizabeth's hand from penury to the highest pinnacle 
 
 * Fynes Moryson.
 
 250 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 of their respective spheres, met and, between them, hatched 
 unutterable villainies against the Queen to whom they both 
 owed everything. Of the two, Essex was unquestionably the 
 greater and more despicable traitor. It was made fairly plain 
 by the evidence at his ultimate trial that it was he who, in the 
 first instance, sought the interview. Unlike his predecessors, 
 this Deputy was not in search of petty bribes. His aims were 
 broader and less sordid, but none the less evil. He had, in 
 fact, conceived the insane project of removing Elizabeth from 
 the throne and replacing her by James of Scotland, and the 
 main object of his interview with Tyrone was to persuade the 
 other to create a diversion in Ireland, at the moment when he 
 himself gave the signal for revolution in England. The actual 
 details of the interview never became public, but that Tyrone 
 in the end acquiesced is made quite clear by what subsequently 
 transpired. He himself was guaranteed immunity from attack 
 for eight months, while Essex having secured the co-operation 
 of the Irish hurried back to England to complete the final 
 arrangements for his contemplated revolution. That Essex's 
 mad scheme was the main topic of conversation between the 
 two Earls during their parley is beyond the region of doubt. 
 Tyrone was not only informed of the proposed revolution, but, 
 in consideration of his co-operation in Ireland at the right 
 moment, he was promised substantial interests in England under 
 the new scheme. This is made quite clear by the evidence of 
 Sir William Warren. After Essex's return to England, this 
 highly-suspected knight was deputed by the Privy Council 
 to continue and complete the negotiations already entered into 
 by the Lord Lieutenant,* and it was through the disclosures 
 of this emissary that the real subject-matter of Essex's conference 
 with Tyrone became known. Warren reported, among other 
 things, that in the course of his conversation with Tyrone the 
 latter gave vent to the following cryptic utterances, which, at 
 the time, were unintelligible both to Warren himself and to the 
 Privy Council, to whom he made his report, but the meaning 
 of which became quite clear in the light of subsequent events. 
 "By further discourse," he reported, " the said Tyrone told 
 to the said Sir William Warren and delivered it with an. oath, 
 that within these two months he should see the greatest altera- 
 tion and the strangest that he, the said Sir William, could 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 205-214.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 351 
 
 imagine or ever saw in his life, but what his meaning was 
 thereby neither did he declare the same to the said Sir William 
 Warren nor could he understand it, more than that Tyrone 
 did say that he hoped before long that he, the said Tyrone, 
 would have a good share in England."* 
 
 Essex was terribly upset when the news reached him that 
 his fellow-conspirator had been so indiscreet as to let out the 
 secrets that had passed between them.f He had already a 
 sufficient number of misdemeanours to answer for, without the 
 addition of this. Apart from other things, his trip to England 
 was in direct defiance of the Queen's commands, which were 
 that he was on no account to take advantage of his prerogative 
 as Lord Lieutenant, which entitled him to leave the country in 
 charge of a Deputy, but was on the contrary to stay in Ireland 
 until he had her permission to leave. In laying this injunction 
 upon him, the Queen possibly had some inkling of his treacherous 
 designs, and knew that she was safer with the sea between them. 
 
 It was suggestive of insanity that, in spite of this explicit 
 command, Essex should suddenly present himself before the 
 Queen at Nonsuch within three weeks of the date of his meeting 
 with Tyrone, and pour into her cold and sceptical ear a wild 
 tale of his heart-broken grief at her non-appreciation of his efforts 
 on her behalf. Elizabeth, to whose credulity and forbearance 
 there were decided limits, listened to his recital calmly, but in 
 high displeasure. On leaving her presence the Lord Lieutenant 
 was at once placed under arrest, and shortly afterwards under- 
 went his trial on charges which were epitomized by Elizabeth as 
 follows : (1.) The disgraceful terms which he concluded with 
 the Traitor. (2.) Speaking alone with him out of hearing of the 
 others at a parley. (3.) Bestowing our offices and honours 
 contrary to our instructions. (4.) Making the Earl of South- 
 ampton Master of his Horse. (5.) Wasting his time in Munster 
 instead of going to Ulster. (6.) Issuing great sums of money 
 contrary to our warrant, and for divers other things. J One of 
 the " divers other things " was that, during the negotiation of 
 the peace terms, Captain Thomas Lee and Sir Christopher Blount 
 (both subsequently executed in connection with the Essex 
 rebellion) had gone secretly to Tyrone and stayed with him three 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 205-195-1. 
 f Cal. State Papers. Vol. 205-210. 
 J Queen to Fenton. Nov. 5th, 1599.
 
 252 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 clays, for which act each of these Captains received, and subse- 
 quently produced, a written pardon signed by Essex himself.* 
 
 Elizabeth's comments under No. 3 were called forth by the 
 knowledge that Essex had made sixty knights within six months, 
 but the indictment was mainly directed at certain specific 
 acts done in connection with those reprehensible half-brothers, 
 Captains Garrett Moore and William Warren. Both these 
 doubtful subjects, strongly suspected of having been concerned 
 in Lord Burgh's death, and known to have been instrumental 
 in effecting Hugh Roe's escape from Dublin Castle, had been 
 knighted by the Lord Lieutenant* and the latter had actually 
 been appointed by Essex Governor of Carrickfergus in substi- 
 tution for Sir Arthur Chichester. This last was a very out- 
 rageous act, the effect of which would have been to have placed 
 the whole country north of Belfast Lough in Tyrone's hands. 
 
 Sir Arthur Chichester had arrived at Carrickfergus in March 
 to take over the command lately vacated by the death of his 
 younger brother John. He had brought with him 500 fresh 
 troops, and a strong determination to extract revenge for the 
 death of his brother. Arthur Chichester for all the bloody 
 deeds which are laid (and truly laid) to his charge was known 
 to be a true and loyal man, and one whose family tragedy had 
 placed him clear beyond the reach of any suspicion of intrigue 
 with the rebels. Such a man in such a place would have been a 
 very serious handicap to the treacherous schemes which Essex 
 and Tyrone had hatched at Anaghclint, while, on the other hand, 
 no man could have been better fitted to their purpose than the 
 newly-knighted Sir William Warren. Essex accordingly coolly 
 removed Chichester and put Warren in his place, to the extreme 
 scandalization of Lord Chancellor Loftus, who felt himself 
 inspired by the occasion to once more level at Warren his accusa- 
 tion of being an open traitor to his Queen. The affair, in fact, 
 was too scandalous in all its aspects to be allowed to drop. Sir 
 George Carey, who had recently succeeded Wallop as trea- 
 surer, wrote in ill-concealed dismay to Cecil on the subject. 
 " Sir Arthur," he said, " is loth to forego that post, and for my 
 own opinion I think he was able to do Her Majesty best service 
 there." Carey's remonstrance would seem to have produced 
 no immediate result, for in July of the following year we find 
 him writing once more to Cecil, warning him that, since Sir 
 
 * Deposition of David Hetherington, Jan. 8th, 1600.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 258 
 
 Arthur Chichester had left Carrickfergus, things there had not 
 gone so well as he could have wished.* This second letter seems 
 to have had the desired effect. Burleigh, the Lord Treasurer, 
 was dead, and his son, Sir Robert Cecil, now guided the Queen's 
 Councils. Cecil hated Essex, and, now that the latter was in 
 disgrace, he had no hesitation in rescinding his Ulster appoint- 
 ments. Warren's commission was revoked, and Chichester 
 once more ruled in Carrickfergus. 
 
 Essex's trial aroused intense interest in England, both on 
 account of the celebrity of the prisoner, and because of the singu- 
 lar nature of the charges levelled against him. He was tried 
 at York House by his peers, and, being acquitted of the higher 
 charge of treason, was set at liberty, but with the loss of all his 
 public offices. Under this indignity Essex entirely lost what 
 little sense remained to him. He utilized his freedom for no 
 other purpose than that of developing the mad schemes, which 
 he had already formed, for the dethronement of Elizabeth. 
 The rising, when it did come, was suppressed almost without 
 an effort, and Essex's comely head shortly afterwards rolled 
 on the straw on Tower Green. Sir Christopher Blount and 
 Captain Thomas Lee followed their patron to execution. 
 
 * Carey to Cecil, Jan. 27th, 1600.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 Tyrone's curious predilection for foreigners Matters concerning the succession 
 Tyrone and Maguire set out for Munster Massacre of the O'Carrols' 
 and Sir Theobald Dillon's tenants Tyrone's quarrel with Maguire 
 Tyrone's religious enthusiasm His seizure of Ormonde Ormonde's im- 
 prisonment Unsuccessful attempts to change his religion Tyrone and 
 Maguire joined by Desmond Skirmish at Carrigrohane Death of Hugh 
 Maguire and St. Leger Great loss to Tyrone's cause Lord Mountjoy arrives 
 as Deputy His ill-health but firm resolution Sir Arthur Chichester 
 His policy of extermination Native precedents for his policy Sir Henry 
 Docwra His humane methods of warfare Expedition to the Foyle sug- 
 gested by Neil Garv Docwra takes command Mountjoy co-operates by 
 means of a demonstration from the south Consternation of Tyrone 
 He returns from Munster His anxiety for a parley with Mountjoy 
 Mountjoy's steady refusal He returns to Dublin on rumours of a Spanish 
 invasion Attack on the Earl of Southampton in the Moyerie Pass. 
 
 IT is one of the commonplace aphorisms of life that momen- 
 tous happenings can often be traced back to very small 
 first causes. Except for Essex's mad revolution in London, 
 Mountjoy would never have been appointed Irish Deputy (for 
 he had died before Essex's natural term would have expired) ; 
 Tyrone's rebellion would not have been suppressed ; the two 
 principal northern chiefs would not have fled the country, and 
 the Ulster Plantation would never have been possible of accom- 
 plishment. The duty of the historian, however, is to deal with 
 facts rather than with speculative flights of fancy. Essex did 
 revolt, and the effects of his rising are to-day engraved history. 
 
 Tyrone had not the time, even if he had the power, to effect 
 the diversion agreed upon. Essex was in the Tower before the 
 news of his rising had reached Ireland, and Tyrone was not the 
 man to batter his head against anybody else's wall. With the 
 practical opportunism, which was his main characteristic, he 
 devoted the eight months' truce, which had been feloniously 
 granted him, to the perfecting of his own civil and military 
 organization. The opportunity of this long cessation of hostili- 
 ties may therefore be reasonably taken advantage of in order 
 to take a brief glance at Tyrone's internal Government as it 
 was in the year 1599. 
 
 254
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 255 
 
 A curious feature in ;i man, who according to some aspired 
 to be King of Ireland, was the predilection which he displayed 
 at this period for the presence of foreigners about his person. 
 Mountfort, his original priest and confessor, had been an 
 Englishman. When Mountfort went to Spain his place was 
 taken by another English priest named Robert Chamberlain.* 
 His Prime Minister and chief counsellor in all political matters 
 was the Englishman Henry Hoveden ; the auditor of his 
 accounts, and manager of all his bribes, was another English- 
 man named Richard Weston,f and his personal bodyguard of 
 200 picked men were all Scotch " Argyle men who would 
 run afoot all day long with their furniture as hard as the Earl 
 would ride. "| The O'Hagans were the only natives in whom 
 he seemed to repose any confidence. This sept, which claimed 
 royal lineage and a descent as old as that of the O' Neils, were 
 Tyrone's foster-brothers and firmly wedded to his cause, not 
 so much as against the English as against any possible revival 
 of the claims of Shane O'Neil's sons, which were still being 
 secretly pushed by the Donnelly sept. There can be no question 
 but that, if Tyrone had met his death at this period, a bloody and 
 promiscuous war would at once have broken out in Tyrone as to 
 the succession. The O'Hagans would have pushed the claims 
 of Cormac McBaron, and the Donnellys those of one of Shane's 
 sons. In addition to the nominees of these two rival factions, 
 there was another highly eligible candidate in the person of 
 Hugh, the eldest legitimate son of the Earl by Joan O'Donnell, 
 who was by many considered the proper person to succeed his 
 father, while other more obscure, but duly qualified aspirants 
 to the succession, were to be found in Tirlough Luineach's two 
 sons and Tirlough Braselagh's sons. Tyrone troubled himself 
 not at all over the possible resurrection of Shane's sons, whom 
 he considered as good at> dead, and very little over the question 
 of a succession in which he would take no personal interest. 
 Later on, before the Battle of Kinsale, he did, as a matter of 
 fact, nominate his son Hugh tanist, but this nomination would 
 certainly have been bloodily contested by other claimants, as 
 such nominations always were. So long as Tyrone was alive 
 none of these questions had more than a very prospective interest, 
 
 * Cal. State Papere, Vol. 218, Part I.-15. 
 
 t Capt. Dawtrey to Sir John Fortescue. Sept. 7th, 1000. 
 
 J Cal. State Papers, Vol. 202, Part IV.-64
 
 256 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 for there was no doubt but that he himself was very much the 
 O'Neil. In the spring of 1600 he was even something more 
 than that, for he was perilously near being the uncrowned king 
 of all Ireland from Malin Head to Cape Clear. Dublin was the 
 only county not in acclaimed rebellion. 
 
 In the month of February of that year Tyrone, who held the 
 view by no means uncommon in Ireland that cessations and 
 truces were only binding on the enemy and not on himself, 
 left Cormac in charge of the northern army, and, in company 
 with Maguire, marched down into County Cork at the head of 
 5,000 men, harrying, burning and spoiling the tenants of any 
 and all who refused to join him. In Westmeath his patriotism 
 found expression in the raiding, killing and burning of the 
 O'Carrols' and of Sir Theobald Dillon's tenants.* " All the 
 movable possessions were carried away, and nothing left but 
 ashes instead of corn, and embers in place of mansions. Great 
 numbers of men, women, sons and daughters were left in a dying 
 state," sing the Four Masters. 
 
 The joint expedition of Tyrone and Maguire to the south 
 had a certain political significance, for it marked the reconcilia- 
 tion of these two chiefs, between whom, for some time past, 
 there had been a marked coolness. The coolness arose from 
 exactly the same cause as that which had estranged Tyrone and 
 Hugh Roe, for Maguire following the example of the O'Donnell 
 had grown tired of the Earl's daughter and had turned her off. 
 The estrangement which followed, however, was not of a lasting- 
 character, and, by the date of the Munster expedition, father- 
 in-law and son-in-law would appear to have arrived at a satis- 
 factory understanding over the matter. 
 
 It is by no means clear as to how far Tyrone had knowledge 
 of the impending Spanish invasion, but it is quite evident that 
 he was by this time fully alive to the fact that in any future 
 conflict with the English he would have to rely solely on Irish 
 troops, for with the exception of Sorley Boy's sons all the 
 leaders among the Scots had by this time become acutely hostile. 
 He also knew that religion was the only driving force which 
 could consolidate the Irish under his banner, and the only justi- 
 fication which in case of defeat he could reasonably put 
 forward for having invoked the aid of England's declared enemy, 
 Spain. He accordingly developed a sudden and convenient 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207-58.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 257 
 
 enthusiasm for the tenets of the Church of Rome, and in this 
 mood marched through Ireland, with Maguire at his side, preach- 
 ing a Holy Crusade, and supporting his religious beliefs with the 
 usual arguments of fire and sword. 
 
 Some idea of the lengths to which Tyrone's new pose was 
 capable of carrying him can be gathered from the incident of the 
 Earl of Ormonde. On April 7th Ormonde was treacherously 
 seized near Kilkenny by the followers of one Onie McRory 
 O' Moore, during a parley with their leader. The Earl of 
 Thomond, who was with Ormonde at the time, barely escaped 
 the same fate, and was wounded by a lance-thrust in the back 
 in breaking away. Ormonde was lodged by McRory in the 
 Castle of Gortnacleagh between Ossory and Leix, but later on 
 was removed for convenience to Sir Terence O'Dempsey's Castle 
 at Ballybrettas. He was well treated, but had for his constant 
 companions Roman Catholic priests, who strove by day and 
 night to change the Earl's religion. The hand of Tyrone shows 
 clearly throughout. He evidently recognized that a united 
 Ireland was impossible so long as the great Leinster Earl remained 
 a Protestant. He accordingly wrote him the following appealing 
 letter, which has a peculiar interest of its own as illustrating the 
 curious way in which the divine and the devilish were jumbled 
 up in Tyrone's superstitious beliefs. " I would rejoice in your 
 good fortune," he wrote to the incarcerated Ormonde, "to be 
 in hand where, without any fear, you may be converted to the 
 Catholic religion, detesting that damnable faith which hereto 
 you have professed ; requesting you to accept of imprisonment 
 as punishment due to your offences in times past committed, and 
 to leave off your delays of conversion to Him who shall infernally 
 punish the obstinacy of such as do not accept of His proffered 
 grace."* 
 
 Ormonde remained a prisoner till July the 12th, when he was 
 released, but his religion remained unchanged. 
 
 On arrival in Cork the two Ulster chiefs joined forces with 
 one James Fitz-Thomas, who quite illegally had invested 
 himself with the title of Earl of Desmond. The combined forces 
 accomplished very little beyond the ordinary pillaging and burn- 
 ing. One armed encounter there was which was productive of 
 fateful results. Sir Warham St. Leger and Sir Henry Power 
 who had been appointed joint commissioners of Munster after 
 
 * Tyrone to Ormonde, May 9th, 1600. 
 
 17
 
 258 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 the death of the Lord President, Sir Thomas Norris, in August of 
 the previous year* were riding near Carrigrohane on the 
 River Lee when they fell in with Maguire, who was similarly 
 occupied. We have a number of accounts of the skirmish 
 which ensued, all of which differ materially, after the fashion of 
 such accounts. The Four Masters affirm that St. Leger and 
 Power laid an ambush for Maguire, which in that case must 
 have been very badly contrived, for, according to their return, 
 only one of the Irish was killed as against six of the English. 
 Sir George Carew tells us that only one man was killed on each 
 side. Sir Henry Power, on the other hand, whose account 
 should be the most reliable, seeing that he was present, wrote 
 to the Privy Council to the effect that he chanced by accident 
 upon Maguire, who had 45 horsemen with him and 16 " shot," 
 i.e., musketeers. In the encounter which followed, between 
 30 and 40 of the enemy were killed, and only one on the side of 
 the English. f William Meade, Mayor of Cork, practically 
 substantiates this version, though he reduces the number of the 
 Irish killed to 20. These minor details, however, are of little 
 importance. The agreed point is that the two leaders were 
 killed, and the picturesque element in the affair is that they 
 were killed in an old-fashioned hand-to-hand encounter, which 
 proved fatal to both. Maguire was killed on the spot and St. 
 Leger succumbed very shortly afterwards to wounds in the head, 
 thus effectually clearing his reputation of the old charge of com- 
 plicity with Tyrone. 
 
 In this way died Hugh Maguire, after close upon eight years 
 of rebellion. He was incomparably the best military commander 
 among the chiefs of the north, and the only one destined to fall 
 in battle. In spite of the doubts thrown on his courage at the 
 Battle of Belleek, he was unquestionably a brave man, and his 
 death was a fittingly gallant one. All the Maguires of that 
 generation were brave men, and both Connor Roe and his son 
 Brian afterwards did admirable service with Mount joy's army. 
 The loss of Maguire was a serious blow to Tyrone's schemes, so 
 much so, in fact, that, according to the Four Masters, it brought 
 upon him " giddiness of spirits." This might well be, for 
 neither he nor Hugh Roe could lay claim to any military capa- 
 city, or even personal courage in the field, and urgent need had 
 
 * Sir Henry Norris died five days after his brother, 
 t Sir Henry Power to Privy Council, March 4th, 1600.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 259 
 
 now arisen for both these qualities in those who would take 
 charge of affairs in the fast-approaching crisis. That a crisis 
 was approaching must have been perfectly clear to all, for there 
 had arrived in Ireland since the beginning of the year three men 
 who even by this time Tyrone must have realized could 
 neither be bought nor fooled. This meant that the era of tom- 
 foolery in rebellion was past and done with, and that serious 
 warfare, so long and skilfully postponed, would at last have to 
 be faced. 
 
 The three honest men who, by coincidence rather than design, 
 had landed all but simultaneously in Ireland, were Lord Mount- 
 joy, Sir Arthur Chichester and Sir Henry Docwra. The first- 
 named arrived at the Head of Howth at the end of February 
 in the capacity of Lord Deputy, and with his advent an entirely 
 new phase in the history of Ireland may be said to have opened. 
 
 Charles Blount, Viscount Mount joy, was in his thirty-eighth 
 year at the time of his arrival in Ireland. He was a singularly 
 handsome man, with a round, boyish face adorned with a short 
 thick moustache and an " imperial." Fynes Moryson, his 
 secretary, describes him as " tall and of very comely propor- 
 tions." Indeed, it had been his good looks which at first 
 brought him to the favourable notice of the susceptible Queen, 
 and for once in a way her feminine caprice did not mislead her. 
 In spite of his somewhat curious behaviour after Tyrone's final 
 overthrow and incidentally after his first personal interview 
 with Tyrone it may truthfully be said that Mount joy was not 
 only a thoroughly capable military leader, but an honest adminis- 
 trator. His health was not too good. When he first arrived 
 in Ireland he was far from well, but the strenuous life appears 
 to have suited him, and he soon became more robust. That he 
 had no illusions as to the magnitude of the task that lay before 
 him is made quite clear by the tone of his letters home. He 
 had barely been in Ireland a month before he wrote tb Cecil 
 that " the Queen has few subjects in Ireland of any sort who have 
 not some kind an intelligence with Tyrone."* 
 
 Sir Arthur Chichester was a very different man from Mountjoy 
 in everything except honesty of purpose and loyalty to his 
 Queen. Some of the methods which he advocated, and indeed 
 adopted, are not easy to defend, even by those to whom his 
 character as a whole is worthy of admiration. He was a younger 
 * Mountjoy to Cecil, April 3rd, 1000. 
 
 I 7 *
 
 260 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 man than the Deputy by about three years, and full of an untir- 
 ing energy. He was a frank apostle of the policy of extermina- 
 tion, and indeed it must be admitted that, at the moment, it 
 was not easy to formulate an alternative policy which was work- 
 able, and which would, at the same time, secure for the Queen 
 a peaceful settlement of a country which preferred to be un- 
 settled. Chichester's own views on the subject were quite 
 definite, and he advocated them without any appearance of 
 shame, justifying his exterminating policy by the contention 
 that there was no other way. " The Queen will never reap what 
 is expected," he wrote to Cecil, " until the nation be either 
 wholly destroyed or so subjected as to take a new impression 
 of laws and religion, being now the most treacherous infidels 
 in the world, and we have too mild spirits and good consciences 
 to be their masters. He is a well-governed and wary gentle- 
 man whom their villainy doth not deceive. Our honesty, 
 bounty, clemency and justice make them not any way assured 
 unto us, neither doth the action of one of their own nation 
 though it be the murder of a brother or friend make them 
 longer enemies than until some small gift or ' buying ' is given 
 to the wronged party."* From these premises he argued that 
 where indulgence produced no response but contempt, extreme 
 severity was the only alternative and the only policy which the 
 natives understood or respected. 
 
 Chichester certainly lived up to his principles, and some 
 of his punitive raids were very brutal, neither man, woman nor 
 child being spared. The actual number of victims sacrificed 
 in these affairs would appear to have been inconsiderable, for 
 the natives had experienced such raids from the earliest days 
 of Irish history, and had inaccessible hiding-places into which 
 they would disappear at the first note of danger. It is against 
 the principle rather than the fruitfulness of such methods that 
 the mind revolts. Horrible, however, as such indiscriminate 
 massacres must seem to modern ideas, it must not be over- 
 looked, before condemning Chichester, that they represented 
 the traditional methods of the country, and that, in resorting 
 to them, Chichester was merely adopting native customs. 
 Tyrone, for example, as we have just seen, had, without any 
 provocation, raided the O'Carrols, and left " great numbers of 
 men, women, sons and daughters in a dying state," not because 
 
 * Chichester to Cecil, Oct. 8th, 1600.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 261 
 
 the O'Carrols had offended him in any way, but because their 
 lord had refused to join his enterprise. Nor do the Irish 
 Annalists who record the incident see anything but what is 
 proper and natural in- the procedure. The custom of visiting 
 the sins of the chief upon the heads of his unhappy serfs was 
 not only invariable, but was recognized as one of the rules of 
 warfare. If O'Neil had a difference of opinion with O'Donnell, 
 his way of expressing his hostility was to send his raiding 
 horsemen into Donegal to massacre man, woman and child, 
 and to carry off everything portable. O'Donneli would 
 retaliate by sending his horsemen to do the like in Tyrone. 
 Very seldom, except by accident, did the two bands of raiders 
 meet and exchange blows. There was a kind of mutual under- 
 standing that such encounters should be avoided as far as 
 might be. When they did take place the usual result was 
 so hollow a victory for one side or the other that the victors 
 came off without loss. After Hugh Maguire's death 200 
 people were killed in the dispute as to the succession between 
 Cuconnaught Maguire and Connor Roe, but these 200 were 
 not combatants, but the inoffensive and defenceless agri- 
 culturists whose labours made the country productive. The 
 removal of these impaired the productiveness of the rival's 
 lands, and for this reason they were cut down just as the corn 
 was cut down. 
 
 This ruthless native custom is admirably illustrated by the 
 conduct of Neil Garv and his brothers during the operations 
 round Lifford in the Docwra campaign. These three 
 O'Donnells, when invading the territory of Hugh Roe or of 
 Tyrone, spared neither age nor sex. Docwra himself resorted 
 to such measures with the greatest reluctance, and only in 
 the case of extreme provocation, and for this reason his cam- 
 paigns in the north-west present to the eye of the reader a far 
 pleasanter picture than do those of Chichester in the north- 
 east, but Docwra's native allies were troubled with no such 
 sentimental scruples. 
 
 Docwra was the youngest and certainly the most attractive 
 in character of the three men who were destined to bring about 
 the downfall of the rebellion. He had originally been brought 
 over specially from the Low Countries to help Essex in military 
 operations which never took place. The task which ultimately 
 fell to his lot was a far more dangerous and delicate under-
 
 262 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 taking than anything which Mount joy or Chichester had to 
 encounter at the time, and, all the circumstances considered, 
 it must be admitted that he carried it out with singular skill, 
 and considering the times in which he lived with com- 
 mendable moderation. Chichester's methods had per se no 
 attraction for him. Instead of aiming at the gradual starva- 
 tion of the natives, we find him, on the other hand, instructing 
 them in all forms of agriculture, and helping them to reclaim 
 and cultivate waste lands. The Four Masters, on the borders 
 of whose country he chiefly worked, have little to urge against 
 him. Indeed, they epitomize him as "an illustrious knight of 
 wisdom and prudence, and a pillar of battle and conflict." 
 
 The dispatch of an expedition to Lough Foyle was first 
 suggested to Mount joy in March by Neil Garv and Sir Art 
 O'Neil. These two wrote conjointly, advising, on purely 
 military grounds, that advantage should be taken of Tyrone's 
 absence in Munster to establish a strong Government force 
 on the Foyle. In neither case was the advice wholly dis- 
 interested. Neil Garv, who was the eldest survivor of Cal- 
 vagh's nine sons, aspired to usurp Hugh Roe's position as the 
 O'Donnell, while Sir Art thought that the title of O'Neil would 
 sit more suitably on himself than on the Earl of Tyrone. They 
 each undertook to join any English force which might be 
 sent with a considerable muster of their own men. The obvious 
 merits of the scheme provided a good man was in charge 
 strongly appealed to Mountjoy's common sense, and early in 
 May Sir Henry Docwra was relieved from the Government of 
 Connaught, and sent off from Carrickfergus with a fleet for the 
 Foyle. At the same time Mount joy himself made a demon- 
 stration in force towards Newry, so as to occupy the attention 
 of Tyrone's forces till Docwra should have had time to estab- 
 lish himself firmly on the Foyle. 
 
 Tyrone was much upset by these aggressive tactics, which 
 threatened his sanctuaries simultaneously from north and 
 south, and he came back post-haste from Munster, arriving 
 in time to take over command of the Irish army, which was, 
 as usual, hovering on the flanks of the Government force. A 
 few insignificant skirmishes followed, but nothing in the nature 
 of a serious engagement, though Mount joy lost no opportunity 
 of trying to provoke a battle. Tyrone's aim was, as usual, for 
 a parley, and for this he pleaded earnestly and persistently
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 263 
 
 with his new opponent. Mount joy, however, acting under 
 very definite instructions from the Queen, who now knew only 
 too well what parleys with Tyrone meant, declined for one 
 moment to entertain any such proposal. He had come, he 
 explained, to fight and not to talk, and the former he was 
 always ready to do, but not the latter. Tyrone must hav 
 known that in these words lay the doom of his rebellion, and 
 Mount joy must also have known that they carried with them 
 a very grave danger to himself. Lord Burgh's untimely fate, 
 however, had not been without its value as a warning to his 
 successor, and the new Deputy took good care to surround 
 himself as far as possible with such as were free from the 
 taint of underhand dealings with Tyrone. 
 
 As soon as Mountjoy was assured of Docwra's safe arrival 
 at the Foyle, the main purpose of his expedition was accom- 
 plished, and he prepared to return to Dublin ; for the rumour 
 of a contemplated Spanish invasion of the South of Ireland 
 was by now too persistent to be ignored. The main body, 
 numbering 1,000, made the passage of the Moyerie Pass on 
 May 19th without hindrance from the enemy, but the Earl of 
 Southampton, who had been sent on two days ahead with 
 500 foot and fifty horse, under Captain Blaney, was less for- 
 tunate, being subjected to annoyance from end to end of the 
 Pass, but without suffering many casualties. Southampton's 
 own behaviour in this affair appears to have been particularly 
 gallant, for Fynes Moryson records that on one occasion he 
 charged 220 of the enemy with only six horse, and " drove 
 them back a musket-shot."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 Docwra reaches the Foyle Friendliness of Art O'Neil and O'Dogherty 
 Tyrone's arrival at Strabane with five thousand men His understanding 
 with Fenton Letters from Captains Willis and Dawtrey Tyrone's singular 
 inaction Epidemic in Derry Docwra' s explanation Hugh Roe carries 
 off sixty horses Docwra wounded in the pursuit Treachery of McSweeney 
 Dogh His arrest and escape Rory O'Cahan's attempt to betray the 
 garrison His capture and execution Neil Garv Docwra's difficulty in 
 dealing with him Death of Art O'Neil Character of Cormac O'Neil 
 Attack on Derry repulsed by Lieut. White. 
 
 SIR HENRY DOCWRA'S expeditionary force to Lough 
 Foyle reached Culmore fort at the mouth of the Lough 
 without mishap. Here Docwra remained six days repairing 
 the fort, which he finally left in charge of a garrison of 600 
 men under Captain Olphert, and thence marched to Ellaugh 
 Castle, which O'Dogherty had begun to pull down, after the 
 fashion of the natives when they abandoned their strongholds. 
 Here he left 150 men under Captain Ellis Flood to effect 
 repairs, and with the remainder of his force marched on to 
 Derry. The importance of the expedition, which completely 
 overshadowed anything hitherto attempted in the Foyle, 
 aroused an intense excitement in the district. Most of the 
 minor local chiefs, exhilarated by the prospect always dear 
 to the Irish mind of upsetting the existing order of things 
 and substituting something else, were tentatively friendly. 
 The only notable exception was Neil Garv, who after having 
 invited the expedition now held aloof and behaved in a 
 very foolish and unreasonable way. Sir Art O'Neil, on the 
 other hand, gave the English a most cordial welcome to the 
 land of the north, and hospitably invited Docwra to come and 
 see him at Dunalong. Docwra replied shortly that he was 
 much too busy to cross the water, and that if the candidate 
 for the chiefly of Tyrone wanted to see him, he must come to 
 Derry. This Sir Art agreed to, and arrived at the new settle- 
 ment on June 1st, very glad to escape the attentions of Cormac 
 
 264
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 265 
 
 McBaron, who was on his heels with anything but friendly 
 intent.* 
 
 O'Dogherty was next interviewed, and in view of the fact 
 that the invaded country was his Docwra made the con- 
 cession in his case of marching out some three miles from 
 Derry to meet him. The Governor took with him Captains 
 Willis and Thornton and 1,000 men, mainly for purposes of 
 effect. Nothing resulted from the interview, as O'Dogherty 
 proved intensely suspicious and refused to talk except to 
 Docwra's private car, a condition which the latter in 
 obedience to orders received from Mountjoy declined for 
 one moment to entertain. The first overt act of hostility to the 
 English came, as might be supposed, from Hugh Roe, who 
 more with the idea of registering an official protest than from 
 any hope of success swept down on Derry with 500 light 
 horse, but without, in any way, incommoding the new settle- 
 ment. This demonstration was shortly followed by another 
 on a much larger scale, under the command of Tyrone himself, 
 who, from the moment when he was relieved from the pressure 
 of Mountjoy's presence at Newry, had given his undivided 
 attention to the more serious danger which threatened from 
 the north. Accompanied by Hugh Roe, Cuconnaught Maguire, 
 O'Connor Sligo and O'Rourke, with all the forces which they 
 could command, estimated by Docwra at 5,000, he arrived at 
 Strabane on June 3rd. Docwra made preparations for resist- 
 ing a determined siege, but the Irish force was not disposed to 
 attack, and, after spending some days in Tirlough Luineach's 
 now ruined and deserted town, dispersed without unsheathing 
 their swords. 
 
 Whether this singular hesitation on the part of Tyrone 
 was due to his natural timidity or to advice received from 
 further south, is not clear. The only fact as to which there 
 is no doubt is that Tyrone was in constant communication 
 with some of the members of the Dublin Government during 
 the whole of his stay at Strabane. Captain Willis's information 
 on this point was so conclusive that he thought it worth a 
 letter to Cecil. " There hath come to Tyrone since his coming 
 to Strabane," he wrote, " letters and messengers from some 
 men of the English Pale which are near the State. I have 
 laid out to have a certainty of it." Captain Dawtrey wrote in 
 
 * Capt. Willis to Cecil, June 4th, 1000.
 
 266 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 the same strain quite independently of Captain Willis, and 
 from another part of the country. " The Deputy," he re- 
 ported, "is a marvellously temperate gentleman, and very 
 affable, but I fear me that Tyrone's faction here [i.e., in Ire- 
 land] have gotten a strange possession of him, and that they 
 do abuse him with their cunning, whereby the rebellion will 
 stand long and put Her Majesty under great charge." He 
 finishes up with the assertion that Fenton and Tyrone are in 
 daily correspondence through means of Richard Weston.* 
 This seems to establish beyond doubt that the man in Willis's 
 mind was no other than Fenton. It is probable that this 
 crafty intriguer warned Tyrone that there were matters pend- 
 ing which required his attention further south, for it is difficult 
 otherwise to account for Tyrone's surprising inaction. The 
 Deny settlement threatened the privacy of his dominions 
 just as effectually as did the Blackwater fort, and, in fact, 
 more so, for the victualling of the former by sea was a far easier 
 matter than the victualling of the latter by land. However 
 that may be, the fact remains that, after shaking a threatening 
 fist for some days, Tyrone disbanded his forces and turned 
 his back on Docwra's enterprise. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of Fenton, it is interesting to 
 note that Mount joy himself had no illusions as to the real 
 character of the Permanent Secretary, for in January, 1603, 
 we find him penning the following significant letter to Sir 
 George Carey, the Treasurer, another official who was popularly 
 reported to have amassed much ill-gotten gain during his 
 term of office : "I have, at your earnest desire, signed a 
 warrant for Sir George Fenton for 100 (for payment of spies), 
 although, as you remember, he had a concordatum for 100 
 from me very lately for such occasions. I pray God his in- 
 telligence be worth it, for, by God, I would not give three 
 farthings for any I received by his means since I came into 
 Ireland." 
 
 Docwra's most formidable foe at the moment was disease. 
 The Irish were wont to say that their four best captains were 
 Captain Hunger, Captain Travail, Captain Toil and Captain 
 Sickness, and on this occasion certainly the last-named proved 
 their most effective ally. The Derry garrison contracted 
 a strange disease, from the effect of which all were more or 
 * Capt Dawtrey to Sir John Fortescue, Sept. 7th, 1600.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 267 
 
 less incapacitated, and many died. Docwra was much per- 
 turbed by this epidemic, and wrote in apologetic strain to 
 Cecil : " The cause of these mortalities I know will be re- 
 quired ; I can ascribe it to nothing but the distemperature 
 of the air, which I assureth your honour exceedeth all credit 
 to such as feel it not." If Docwra's explanation was correct, 
 the climate must have marvellously changed in the last three 
 hundred years, for it is hard to conceive of a healthier spot 
 than modern Derry. It was the convenient fashion of the day 
 to ascribe all sickness among the troops to the malignity 
 of the Irish climate, which was supposed to breed mysterious 
 maladies. The truth was that in the majority of cases the 
 sickness arose from the excesses of the soldiery, coupled with 
 a complete ignorance of the first principles of hygiene. The 
 Derry epidemic does not seem to have been a long-lived affair, 
 and by the time summer had set in we hear no more complaints 
 of sickness or even of climate. 
 
 At the end of July Hugh Roe's rebel bands scored their 
 first success, for they managed to steal sixty* of the garrison 
 horses, with the connivance of McSweeney Dogh (the chief of 
 the Dunfanaghy district), who was inside the walls as Docwra's 
 ally, and who let the horses loose by previous arrangement with 
 Hugh Roe. Docwra was quickly on their track with a hur- 
 riedly raised band of twenty mounted men, with which he 
 overtook the raiders before they had covered many miles, 
 but he was unable to recover the prey, he himself being struck 
 in the forehead by a javelin thrown by Hugh McHugh Duv, and 
 so badly wounded that the pursuit had to be abandoned.! 
 
 McSweeney' s treachery in the matter was fully established 
 by a letter written by him to Hugh Roe, which Docwra managed 
 to intercept, and he was at once placed under arrest. Docwra, 
 being still new to his position and not on the best of terms 
 with the Lord Deputy, showed more hesitation in dealing 
 summarily with a case of this sort than he did later on. He 
 determined to pass the responsibility on to his superior, and, 
 as a ship was on the eve of sailing for Dublin, McSweeney was 
 placed on board and confined below hatches, with a view to 
 taking his trial at the Metropolis. The hatches, however, 
 
 * According to the Four Masters the number of horses captured was 200. 
 Docwra's figures are, however, the more likely to be correct. 
 f Four Masters.
 
 268 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 were afterwards opened to take on board some beer, and this 
 seemed to McSweeney a favourable opportunity for avoiding 
 a ceremony which naturally had little attraction for him. He 
 accordingly leaped on to the deck, flung himself into the water, 
 and being a strong swimmer got away, before any pursuit 
 could be organized, to O'Cahan's shore, where, with a derisive 
 yell, he disappeared into the underwood.* 
 
 McSweeney Dogh had originally gained Docwra's favour 
 and confidence by bringing in a hundred of Hugh Roe's cattle. 
 On August 19th, Rory O'Cahan (O'Cahan's brother) tried the 
 same tactics. He arrived in Derry with forty men and sixty 
 fat beasts. Docwra paid him for the beasts and sent him 
 for more, which he produced. Having in this fashion estab- 
 lished, as it were, his footing, Rory then asked for 800 men, 
 with which he undertook to overcome his brother Donnell, 
 and place the entire Coleraine country under the rule of the 
 Queen. Sir Art O'Neil, who was in Derry at the time, for- 
 tunately warned Docwra against trusting Rory, whom he 
 described as a notorious traitor. Docwra accordingly refused 
 him the men, and accused him to his face of intended treachery, 
 but allowed him to go free on depositing two pledges for his 
 good conduct. Rory went off humbly enough, but the very 
 next day appeared on the opposite shore with 300 men, and 
 shouted across insulting defiance at Docwra and all English- 
 men generally, adding, at the same time, that, if his pledges 
 were hanged, he would kill every Englishman that fell into 
 his hands thereafter. Docwra's reply was to erect a gibbet 
 on the rampart and hang the two pledges in full view of their 
 depositor, who could hardly have expected any other issue. f 
 
 Rory did not live to carry out his threat. Three months 
 later, Docwra, in obedience to orders received from Mount joy, 
 sent Captain Orme over the water by way of Greencastle, 
 while he himself crossed at Lifford. The two then worked 
 towards one another on the far side, destroying all the corn- 
 stacks as they went, and while engaged on this work came 
 suddenly upon Rory, who was captured and immediately 
 hanged for his past treachery. J It afterwards transpired that 
 the 800 men he had asked for were to have been led by him 
 into a prepared ambush, by arrangement with Tyrone. 
 
 * Docwra to Cecil, Aug. 29th, 1600. 
 
 | Docwra Narration. % Fynes Moryson.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 269 
 
 At the end of August Captain Hart arrived in the Foyle 
 with reinforcements of men and horses, and Docwra found 
 himself strong enough to split his forces. He himself kept 
 300 men at Derry, and sent 400 under Sir John Bowles, his 
 second in command, to Dunalong to support Sir Art O'NeiL 
 whose own force consisted of forty Irish only. 
 
 Neil Gary, who so far had proved very difficult and con- 
 tradictory, now came in and made an offer to form an offensive 
 and defensive alliance with the English if he was guaranteed 
 the chiefry of Donegal, freedom of religion and the right to 
 select his own sheriff. To these conditions Docwra agreed 
 in substance, though with certain diplomatic reservations as 
 to Neil Garv's future conduct. At the same time, " as a 
 token of his love," he sent him a hat, a piece of kersey and a 
 piece of khaki.* Neil Garv afterwards claimed that his terms 
 were agreed to unconditionally, and on the subsequent non- 
 fulfilment of the first condition, which stipulated that he should 
 rule Donegal " in as ample a manner as his grandfather, Cal- 
 vagh," he managed to build up an imperishable grievance. 
 The next chief to come in was O'Dogherty, whose condition 
 was that he should have Ellaugh Castle (in the parish of 
 Templemore) as soon as it had been rendered defensible, and 
 that he should also have the catering contract for the Derry 
 garrison. Both these points were agreed to, and O'Dogherty 
 at once took up his new duties as caterer, but his prices proved 
 so hopelessly exorbitant that the arrangement was not of long 
 duration, a development from which he in turn was not slow 
 to manufacture a grievance. 
 
 Docwra had now three important native allies to back him 
 up, but it was not long before he began to experience more 
 trouble from his Irish confederates than from his Irish enemies. 
 Sir Art O'Neil, who had lived his entire life in penurious 
 obscurity, now became so elated with his sudden access of 
 prosperity that nothing could be done with him. Docwra, 
 who had received special instructions from the Government 
 to exploit this son of Tirlough Luineach as the prospective 
 O'Neil, wrote in despair to both Mountjoy and Cecil, complain- 
 ing that he was quite impossible to deal with on account of 
 his unreasonable rapacity. Mountjoy was not surprised. 
 " That Sir Art O'Neil is discontented," he wrote to Cecil, 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part V.-58.
 
 270 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 "is no wonder ; for even the best of this people, out of all 
 their extreme pride and over-valuing themselves, are never 
 satisfied."* The problem, however, as far as Sir Art was 
 concerned, was quickly solved by his death. He was seldom 
 sober, and in October died " of too many carouses on his 
 wedding-day." f The moment Art was dead, his brother 
 Cormac came in, claiming all the privileges which had been 
 conceded to his elder brother. Cormac proved a very superior 
 character in every respect to Art, and Docwra at the first 
 had great hopes of him. He is described as " of a mild, honest 
 disposition, willing to serve without grating beggary and 
 unreasonable demands, but little less barbarous than the 
 better sort of wood-kerne." J The Governor's chief difficulty 
 lay in the inveterate hatred of all his three Irish allies for one 
 another. Each in turn ceaselessly accused the other two of 
 being traitors and spies working in the interest of Hugh Roe, 
 so that the difficulty of knowing which to believe and which 
 to trust was more than a little disconcerting. || Docwra very 
 wisely began by distrusting them all, but gradually changed 
 his opinion with regard to Neil Garv, whom, at the end of the 
 year, he had pronounced to be trustworthy, though intensely 
 difficult to deal with. Unfortunately, however, this first 
 favourable impression did not stand the test of time. 
 
 The actual fighting so far had been insignificant, the only 
 relief from the monotony of daily routine arising from an 
 attempt at a surprise attack on Deny by " a hundred " (i.e., 
 a fair-sized party) of Hugh Roe's men ; this happened at the 
 end of September. The night was a very dark one, but the 
 watch was well kept, and Lieutenant White, who Was on guard 
 with twenty mounted men, quickly got the alarm, and, hurry- 
 ing to the threatened spot, charged and dispersed the assailants, 
 who left fifteen of their number dead on the ground.^} 
 
 * Mountjoy to Cecil, Oct. 27th, 1600. 
 
 f Capt. Willis to Cecil, Oct. 27th, 1600. See also Chichester to Cecil 
 Oct. 29th, 1600. 
 
 J Sir John Bowles to Cecil, Dec. 1st, 1600. 
 
 Sir John Bowles to Cecil, Nov. 1600. 
 
 || Fynes Moryson. 
 
 <J Docwra Narration. In his letter of Oct. 1st to the Privy Council Docwra 
 says White had eight men with him and killed two, but the revised figures in 
 his later Narration may be accepted as the more correct.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 Mountjoy's energy He reaches the Moyerie Pass Unprecedented rain 
 Description of Tyrone's defences Their capture by Capt. Williams 
 Connor Roe escapes from Tyrone Mountjoy's good opinion of him 
 English casualties in the Moyerie Mountjoy returns to Dundalk He 
 returns to the attack Disappearance of Tyrone's opposition Mountjoy 
 cuts down the trees He reaches Newry unopposed Establishment of 
 new fort at Mount Norris Attack by Tyrone's men Too much whisky 
 Mountjoy returns to Dundalk via Carlingford Fight at Ballyonan A 
 price is placed on Tyrone's head. 
 
 THE energy which had characterized Mountjoy's earlier 
 movements proved no mere flash in the pan. He quickly 
 gave evidence of a determination to allow the rebel Earl no 
 respite from his attentions. In October he made an effort to 
 bring matters to a climax. This he hoped to achieve by a 
 concerted movement which aimed at attacking Tyrone 
 simultaneously from north and south, while Chichester co- 
 operated from the Carrickfergus side. In furtherance of this 
 scheme, he left Dundalk on the 20th with 1,700 foot and 140 
 horse, and encamped at the Faughart Hill, at the entrance to 
 the famous Moyerie Pass. Tyrone, quite alive to the import- 
 ance of the occasion, had lined the pass with an army of 
 3,000 foot and 300 horse, and that he recognized the gravity of 
 the situation is made evident by his announcement to his 
 followers that, if the Deputy once reached Newry, Ulster was 
 as good as lost.* On this occasion the Deputy was not destined 
 to reach Newry, for it rained without cease for ten con- 
 secutive days from the moment of his arrival at the Moyerie, 
 the downpour being the heaviest in the memory of man for 
 thirty-seven years. | Following the same tactics which had 
 proved so successful in the case of Bagenal's ill-fated expedition 
 from Armagh, Tyrone had dug two parallel lines of trenches 
 from wall to wall of the pass, the second line being just beyond 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part V.-84. 
 t Sir F. Stafford to Cecil, Oct. 4th, 1600. 
 
 2 7 I
 
 272 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 the Four Mile Water, i.e., the ford on the Kilmory River, four 
 miles from the camp.* " From mountain to mountain, from 
 wood to wood, and from bog to bog," Mountjoy wrote to the 
 Queen, " were long traverses, with huge and high flankers of 
 great stones mingled with turf, and staked on both sides with 
 palisades wattled. "f Formidable as these two lines of trenches 
 appear to have been, they were both captured by that admirable 
 soldier, Captain Williams, of Blackwater fame, in a perfect 
 deluge of rain on September 25th, the defenders abandoning 
 the position without putting up any fight. A number of arms 
 and a considerable stock of provisions were captured, but the 
 trenches themselves were not held, as they were too far ahead 
 of the transport and baggage, which the weather had rendered 
 immovable. On October 2nd there was another brisk skirmish, 
 in the confusion arising from which Connor Roe's son Brian, 
 who was a prisoner with Tyrone, escaped and came over to the 
 English side, where he rendered such good account of himself 
 as to " kill two rogues with his own hand."J Not only did 
 he effect his own escape, but, in coming across, he managed to 
 compel the attendance of Cormac McBaron's eldest son, whom 
 he brought in triumph to Mount joy's camp and subsequently 
 sold to the Deputy for 50. Connor Roe himself had been 
 with the Deputy's force from the outset, and he, too, was 
 reported to have acquitted himself right well and nobly in 
 the fighting. Mountjoy had a very high opinion of the elder 
 Maguire. " The old man," he wrote to Cecil, " is the only 
 honest Irishman that I have yet found since my coming hither, 
 and, believe me, Sir, the wisest man that I have known of his 
 nation."| 
 
 'The skirmish on the 2nd was productive of nothing definite 
 in the way of results. On the English side Captain Rush and 
 Lieutenants Willis and Jackson were killed, the other casualties 
 in all amounting to about a hundred. On the 5th, which was 
 the first fine day experienced since Dundalk had been left, 
 the fight was renewed. Sir Charles Percy and Sir Oliver St. 
 John, with their companies, scaled the crags on the left of 
 
 * The site of these trenches is between Acton and Poyntzy Pass. 
 
 f Mountjoy to the Queen, May, 1602. 
 
 j Mountjoy to Cecil, Dec. 12th, 1600. 
 
 Mountjoy to Privy Council, Dec. llth, 1GOO 
 
 !| Mountjoy to Cecil. Dec. 12th, 1000.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 273 
 
 the pass and put the opposing forces to flight, but they sus- 
 tained some losses in doing so, Sir Robert Lovell being shot 
 through the head and Lieutenant Brereton being also killed. 
 The casualties in killed and wounded on the English side now 
 amounted to 250,* and, though the actual fighting had been 
 in their favour, the tactical victory rested with Tyrone, for 
 on October 7th the Deputy was forced to return to Dundalk. 
 
 The curious passivity of Tyrone's methods were now once 
 more exemplified by the fact that, after Mount joy had retired 
 to Dundalk, Sir Samuel Bagenal's contingent was allowed to 
 return to Newry (i.e., to move towards the north) through the 
 Moyerie Pass without molestation, though Tyrone was through- 
 out on the heights above, watching the proceedings. Sir 
 Samuel was a cousin of the late Marshal, and a man whom, 
 beyond all others, except Chichester, Tyrone as a true patriot 
 should have hated, for his methods were fully as brutal as 
 were those of the Carrickfergus Governor ; and yet he was 
 allowed to pass unhindered with a small force which Tyrone's 
 big army could easily have overwhelmed, f Still more curious 
 was Tyrone's subsequent action, or rather inaction, in the 
 Moyerie Pass itself, for ten days later, when Mount joy, having 
 reorganized his force, renewed his attempt on the Pass, he 
 found every conceivable artificial obstacle barring his way, 
 but no armed opposition. Taking advantage of this all but 
 providential opportunity, Mount joy made most deliberate 
 progress through the Pass, cutting down the trees on both sides 
 as he went, so as to ensure that any future fighting between 
 Dundalk and Newry should at any rate be done in the open. 
 On October 27th, he and his army reached Newry. There is no 
 explanation of this extraordinary neglect of opportunity on 
 the part of Tyrone except on the assumption that he had not 
 yet read Mount joy aright, and hoped by such kid-gloved methods 
 to cajole him into the customary parley. If this was his 
 expectation, he was doomed to disappointment, for on this 
 point Mountjoy remained immovable. Hugh Roe subsequently 
 upbraided his chief most bitterly with having grievously 
 bungled the whole affair. 
 
 * Sir George Carey to Cecil, Oct. 9th, 1600 ; see also Sir F. Stafford to Fenton. 
 Oct. 6th, 1600. The Four Masters, in their account of the affair state that " count- 
 less numbers of their gentlemen, oflicers, recruits and attendants were slain." 
 
 t Samuel Bagenal was not held in high repute even by the English, and he 
 was shortly afterwards relieved by Mountjoy of his command. 
 
 18
 
 274 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 resting for a week at Newry, Mount joy set out towards 
 Armagh, with the idea of selecting some half-way spot which 
 would act as a connecting link between these two places, and 
 so facilitate the advance of expeditionary forces working 
 towards the Blackwater. He found an ideal spot near Aughna- 
 grane, about eight miles from Newry, where there was an old 
 Danish tower and a fine spring of water. While Mount joy 
 was engaged in making a peaceful survey of this favourable 
 spot, his force was suddenly attacked with terrific yells by 
 Tyrone's men. The surveying party was taken so completely 
 by surprise that serious consequences might have followed if 
 the Earl, in his anxiety to stimulate the military ardour of his 
 men, had not so overdosed them with whisky or aqua vita, as 
 it was then called that the majority measured their length 
 before coming within striking distance, and remained where 
 they fell, incapable of moving.* The most important prisoner 
 taken in this ignominious fashion was Neil O'Quinn, and he 
 was so drunk that it was twenty-four hours before he could 
 speak at all. 
 
 Mountjoy decided to christen the new fort Mount Norris. 
 Four hundred men, under Captain Blaney, who is doubtfully 
 described as "a very worthy and painful gentleman," were 
 left to carry out its construction. On November 12th Mountjoy 
 returned to Dundalk via the Narrow Water and Carlingford, 
 a route by the adoption of which the fatal Moyerie Pass was 
 avoided. Mountjoy, however, had other reasons for his deci- 
 sion, the chief of which was that there was an abundance of 
 provisions at Carlingford, while Dundalk and Newry were 
 eaten bare. All his force was accordingly transferred across 
 the water in small boats, after which he set out along the sea- 
 shore towards Carlingford. . While yet two miles short of that 
 place, but after passing Ballyonan, he was attacked by Tyrone, 
 who had erected two strong barricades from the woods to the 
 sea, and who had four hundred men posted on the steep 
 wooded slopes which commanded the barricades, f From these 
 slopes a wild fusillade was opened on Mount joy's men the 
 moment they set to work to break down the obstacles. The 
 English troops, who behaved extraordinarily well in a very 
 trying position, replied as well as they were able in the absence 
 of any visible enemy. In the end the barricades were success- 
 
 * Sir Griffin Markhum to Cecil, Nov. 8th, 1600. f Fynes Moryson.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 275 
 
 fully removed and the army proceeded on its way, but fifteen 
 of the English were killed and fifty wounded in the process, 
 Mount joy's secretary, Cranmer, who was shot close by the 
 Deputy's side, being among the former.* 
 
 Mount joy was greatly incensed by the loss of his men, and 
 especially by the death of his secretary so much so, in fact, 
 that on arrival at Dundalk he at once issued a proclamation 
 offering a reward of four thousand marks for Tyrone alive and 
 two thousand for him dead. It speaks much for the sanctity 
 in which the O' Neil's person was held by the natives that, 
 as far as is known, no one of his followers made any attempt 
 to take advantage of this offer. 
 
 With the return of the army to Dundalk, Mount joy's first 
 serious campaign against the rebel Earl may be said to have 
 closed. 
 
 The results actually achieved were small, and yet, small 
 though they were, of supreme military importance, for the 
 establishment of the new fort at Mount Norris was the first 
 nail in the coffin of Tyrone's rebellion. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VI.- 25.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 Capture of Liffbrd by Sir John Bowles Neil Garv is left in command Neil 
 Gary's many enemies Hugh Roe attempts to retake Lifford His two 
 successive failures Death of Manus O'Donnell- Death of Hugh McManus 
 Hugh Roe's brutal act of revenge Neil Garv and his brothers raid New- 
 town Hugh Roe's attempt on Culmore Fort Attempted intrigue with 
 Captain Olphert Hugh Boy McDavitt His character Description of 
 Derry Spanish ships at Killibegs Death of Sir John O'Dogherty 
 Phelim Oge and Cahir contend for the succession Shortage in the Derry 
 musters Docwra's explanation McSweeney Fanad His revolt and 
 submission The custom of " pledges " Docwra's native allies Their 
 characters Neil Garv goes to Dublin His views on social questions 
 Tyrone attempts to raid Dunalong His failure and precipitate flight 
 Capture of Newtown, Castle Derg and Omagh. 
 
 IN the meanwhile events at Derry were progressing smoothly 
 and uneventfully, but, from the English point of view, 
 quite satisfactorily. The first act of expansion oil the part 
 of the settlement was the capture of Lifford. This was achieved 
 by Sir John Bowles, who left Derry on the evening of October 8th 
 with five hundred foot, including one hundred and twenty 
 Irish under Neil Garv, and, after marching all night, arrived 
 opposite Lifford at 9 a.m. on the following morning. Hugh 
 Roe's garrison was apparently taken completely by surprise ; 
 the fort was captured with but little opposition and the garrison 
 put to the sword.* The fort, which was in the form of a 
 triangle surrounded by a deep fosse and a rampart, contained 
 some twenty houses, which, now that winter was approaching, 
 afforded a welcome addition to the house accommodation of the 
 army. 
 
 Neil Garv, to his great delight, was left in command of Lifford, 
 being thus reinstated in his family heritage after many years 
 of enforced residence at Castle Finn. His establishment at 
 Lifford had something more than a sentimental value to this 
 homeless Ishmaelite, who at the moment was in extremely bad 
 odour with the majority of his own people. Hugh Roe, whom he 
 
 * Docwra to Privy Council, Nov. 2nd, 1600. Other accounts state that they 
 all fled and were not pursued. 
 
 276
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 277 
 
 was trying to supplant, was very naturally his implacable foe 
 and had placed a price on his head. Hugh Roe's mother, 
 Ineenduv, was no less furiously hostile, and certainly no less 
 to be feared. That dangerous and energetic lady's two main 
 residences were at Mongavlin and at Carrigans, and though 
 Docwra's proximity had compelled her to shift her quarters 
 further south, her influence was still strong enough in and 
 around those places to cause uneasiness to a man who had no 
 ramparts round him, and who had not forgotten the murder of 
 his two brothers. Not content with the active hostility of 
 Hugh Roe and his mother, Neil Garv had recently still further 
 excited the family hatred by most unwisely killing his uncle 
 Nachten " in a drunken fury,"* a deed for which retaliation 
 in one form or another might reasonably be expected. In all 
 the circumstances, then, the shelter of a strong fort was not 
 to be despised. 
 
 Apart from its value, sentimental or protective, to Neil 
 Garv, Lifford was a distinct acquisition from the genera 
 military standpoint, for not only did it command the only 
 passage into Donegal across the River Mourne, but it also 
 dominated the town of Strabane on the opposite bank. Stra- 
 bane, it is true, was in ruins, having remained in that condition 
 ever since Tyrone had demolished it in 1595, but it still had a 
 certain political importance as the recognized headquarters of 
 Tirlough Luineach's descendants, who at the moment were 
 the Government favourites for the title of O'Neil. Cormac, 
 indeed, offered to rebuild it if Docwra would provide him with 
 the necessary masons, but this did not prove practicable at the 
 moment, and the idea was abandoned. 
 
 Hugh Roe made two efforts to capture Lifford, one on 
 October 17th and another on the 24th, but in each case he was 
 beaten off by Neil Garv. On the first of these occasions 
 Neil Garv very seriously wounded Hugh Roe's brother Manus 
 O'Donnell, whom he transfixed under the arm with a long 
 lance. Manus was carried on a litter to Donegal, where he 
 died on October 22nd. His old father Hugh McManus, who 
 for many years ^>ast had been quite doting, died six weeks 
 after his son. "I" 
 
 Hugh Roe was so enraged by his defeat and by the death 
 of his brother, that he rode straight away up to Castle Finn, 
 * Csil. State Pii|>er.s, Vol. 2<)7, Part V.-120. f Four Masters.
 
 278 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 where Neil Gary's wife Nuala lived, and, seizing her four year- 
 old boy by the heels, beat out his brains against the door-post 
 before the mother's eyes.* The brutality of this act was 
 enhanced by the fact that Nuala was Hugh Roe's own sister. 
 Unhappily the sacrifice of the innocent to the spirit of vengeance 
 did not end there, for Neil Garv, supported by his brothers Con 
 and Donnell, retaliated for the death of his son by making a 
 raid on Henry Hoveden's country (between Newtown Stewart 
 and Omagh), in the course of which five hundred cattle were 
 captured and man, woman and child were indiscriminately 
 killed, f 
 
 Four months later during Neil Garv's temporary absence 
 in Dublin his two brothers made a similar raid upon Newtown, 
 in the course of which twelve wood-kerne and thirty-eight 
 " others " were killed. J 
 
 In the meanwhile some interesting developments were taking 
 place in Derry itself. One of the garrison, by name Lieutenant 
 Roberts, had killed another lieutenant in a quarrel, and in 
 order to avoid punishment, he fled to O'Dogherty, who passed 
 him on to his dominant chieftain, Hugh Roe. Hugh Roe 
 at once took advantage of the situation in order to try, through 
 the medium of his prisoner, to get possession of Culmore Fort, 
 and, incidentally, of the person of his hated rival Neil Garv. 
 The fort was in charge of Captain Olphert, and Hugh Roe 
 promised that, if Roberts could prevail on Olphert to hand it 
 over to him after having invited Neil Garv to supper, he would 
 give one thousand pounds to be divided between Roberts and 
 Olphert, in addition to which he would give Olphert a gold 
 chain and three hundred pounds for his men. Roberts 
 pretended to acquiesce, but found means to let Docwra have 
 all the particulars of the plot. In connection with this plot a 
 young Irishman of the name of Hugh Boy McDavitt appears 
 for the first time on the scene. This Hugh Boy was destined 
 later on to play a rather prominent part in the affairs of Derry, 
 as was also his brother Phelim Reagh. Hugh Boy is described 
 by a contemporary as being a tall, good-looking young man, of 
 
 * Docwra to Cecil, Feb. 12th, 1601. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Jan. 24th, 1601. 
 J Fynes Moryson. 
 
 Docwra says that the bribe offered was a gold chain and 3,000 a year 
 from the King of Spain.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 271) 
 
 extremely engaging manners, with as honest and open a coun- 
 tenance as a man might wish for, and with as dishonest a heart. 
 The latter characteristic, however, was never admitted by 
 Docwra. The Governor seems, in fact, to have been completely 
 hypnotized by this young man, who, according to many, made 
 a thorough fool of him. This, however, was not till later. 
 At the time of the Culmore Fort plot this youth was sent by 
 Hugh Roe to Olphert with a letter of introduction from 
 Roberts. Armed with this passport, he made his way to Cul- 
 more, where he duly presented Captain Olphert with the letter 
 of introduction, and with the gold chain (which had been given 
 to Hugh Roe by the King of Spain, and which was valued at 
 one hundred and sixty pounds) as an earnest of his chief's 
 friendly intentions.* No money changed hands on the occa- 
 sion of this first meeting, nor is it probable that Hugh Boy came 
 provided with any more tangible bribe than the chain. 
 Olphert, not to be outdone in politeness, made a pretence of 
 agreeing to the proposition, but took good care to keep Docwra 
 fully informed of all that was going on, in the hopes of cap- 
 turing the proposed party of occupation. Hugh Roe's scheme, 
 however, never got beyond the preliminary stages, for Hugh 
 Boy became suspicious that Docwra knew more than was sup- 
 posed, and the whole scheme was allowed to drop.f The only 
 practical effect of the affair was that Docwra wholly broke off 
 all friendly relations with O'Dogherty, who had proved himself 
 too double-faced to be trusted. As a matter of fact, he was 
 of very little value either as an ally or an enemy, for he was 
 hopelessly incapacitated both in body and mind by ceaseless 
 drunkenness.^ 
 
 In the winter of 1600, while the various English garrisons on 
 the Foyle were resting till the following spring, it may be of 
 interest to take a glance at the country in which they had 
 settled. Derry is described as an island of high, uneven 
 ground, a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, containing 
 the ruins of two churches, a Castle and a Cathedral. On one 
 side was the sea, and on the other a bog passable on foot in 
 summer, but not in winter. The sea was in the shape of a 
 bow, the bog forming the string. There were good slate and 
 
 * Docwra Narration. 
 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VI.-77-1. 
 
 % Cal. State Papers, Dec. 1000.
 
 280 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 stone quarries on the island, and two excellent springs of water. 
 Right opposite Derry was a very large wood, and a mile higher 
 up the river plenty of birch and hazel, but no other kinds of 
 wood. Off the mouth of the Foyle there was good fishing for 
 cod, and off Culmore reasonably good herring fishing. From 
 Dunalong to Lifford excellent salmon, trout and flounder 
 fishing from June to the end of August. Vast quantities of wild- 
 fowl at all times. On Inishowen there was no timber of any 
 sort, but good crops of flax, oats and barley were grown,* 
 which were systematically improved and increased by Docwra, 
 who instructed the natives in the newest methods of agriculture. 
 
 In January, 1601, there was great excitement in north-west 
 Ulster over the arrival of two Spanish ships at Killibegs, bring- 
 ing ten thousand ducats and two thousand muskets, with 
 powder and lead to match. Half of this consignment went 
 to Tyrone, while the other half was divided up between Hugh 
 Roe, O'Rourke, O'Connor Sligo and McWilliams. Tyrone, 
 who on former occasions had experienced certain difficulties 
 with regard to the circulation of Spanish coinage in Ireland, 
 resolved that there should in any case be no trouble this time, 
 and issued a proclamation that any refusal to take the money as 
 legal tender should be reckoned as a capital offence, f 
 
 In the same month the situation in Lough Foyle district was 
 a good deal complicated by the death of Sir John O'Dogherty> 
 an occurrence which at once gave rise to the usual family 
 squabble over the succession. The rival candidates in this 
 case were O'Dogherty's brother Phelim Oge, and his son Cahir. 
 Hugh Roe nominated the former chief of Inishowen, while 
 Docwra, as a natural sequence, supported the cause of the 
 latter. At the same time, and as a necessary part of the 
 transaction, Docwra extended a free pardon to Hugh Boy 
 for his share in the recent attempt on Culmore Fort. This was 
 by no means the least important development arising out of 
 the new situation, for from this time onwards this insidious 
 youth began to worm his way into the Governor's counsels, 
 and to exercise an altogether unaccountable influence over 
 his policy. In spite of the fact that he was known to be Hugh 
 Roe's most intimate associate, and in spite of warnings from 
 many quarters, both English and Irish, that his ultimate 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VI.-85. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VII.-15,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 281 
 
 designs were treacherous, Hugh Boy was allowed to come and 
 as he pleased, in and out of all English garrisons on Lough 
 Foyle, without challenge or supervision. 
 
 These garrison forts now included Derry, Culmore, Dunalong, 
 Lifford, Greencastle, Ellaugh Castle and Rathmullen Abbey, 
 the latter having been captured by a small force which Docwra 
 had sent quietly at night across Lough Swilly. The total 
 number of troops in occupation of these places was now returned 
 at three thousand five hundred men, but, as a matter of fact, 
 this figure was double the actual number mustered, and Docwra 
 very nearly fell under his Queen's heavy displeasure over the 
 discrepancy. He was ordered to explain why he had allowed 
 the commissioners to make false returns of the musters, 
 " whereby the Queen is much abused and her treasury frau- 
 dulently consumed." Docwra made the usual excuse to the 
 effect that he himself had been deceived by his Captains, which 
 may or may not have been true ; but the excuse was at all 
 events accepted in high quarters at the time, so it may reason- 
 ably be accepted by the less interested reader of the present 
 day. 
 
 Docwra' s three native allies at the moment were Neil Garv, 
 Tirlough Luineach's son Cormac, and Hugh Boy McDavitt. 
 McSweeney Dogh, as we have seen, had proved false. His 
 namesake, McSweeney Fanad, proved little more reliable. 
 He had started by being very friendly, but had later on 
 deserted to Hugh Roe, whereupon Docwra had raided his 
 country (west of Lough Swilly) and carried off a thousand 
 cattle. This brought McSweeney to his knees, and he came 
 in and offered absolute submission if he might have his cattle 
 back again. Docwra returned him the greater part of them, 
 but kept a few by way of a fine, an arrangement with which 
 the chief appeared quite satisfied. He left six pledges for his 
 future good behaviour, of whom one was his son, and he and 
 Docwra parted on the best of terms. Almost immediately 
 afterwards, however, he openly joined Hugh Roe, and cele- 
 brated the event by raiding and carrying off a large number 
 of the garrison cattle, whereupon Docwra according to native 
 custom hanged his six pledges.* Not content with exacting 
 this penalty which he suspected would leave McSweeney un- 
 moved Docwra invaded the country of Fanad, and burned all he 
 
 * Docwra Narration.
 
 282 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 could find, " whereof most of his people died."* This is the 
 most notable instance on record of Docwra having deliberately 
 adopted fire-and-sword methods, and it must be owned that 
 the end achieved, even if it did not justify the morality of the 
 means employed, certainly justified their expediency, for 
 McSweeney was so impressed by the length and power of 
 Docwra' s arm that he made a second submission, put in six 
 fresh pledges and remained loyal to the end. 
 
 The custom of giving hostages or " pledges as a guarantee 
 of good faith had always been a recognized practice in Ireland, 
 and in the sixteenth century it was universally adopted by the 
 English in their relations with the natives. When a chief of 
 importance gave an undertaking to follow some particular line 
 of action, the custom was to leave a certain number of pledges, 
 on the understanding that they should lose their lives if he 
 failed to carry out his compact. The pledges left were generally 
 the nearest and dearest obtainable in the circumstances, and the 
 system seems to have worked admirably, for everyone except 
 the pledges, whose interest in the issue was more exciting 
 than pleasant. By no means the least remarkable feature of 
 this custom was the apparent callousness with which the chiefs 
 sacrificed their pledges even when they were their own children 
 to any whim of the moment. 
 
 Between Docwra's new allied triumvirate, Neil Garv, Cormac 
 and Hugh Boy, there was as bitter a hatred as there had been 
 between the original three, Neil Garv, Art O'Neil and 
 O'Dogherty. Not one of them would hear anything good of 
 the other two. Docwra's own estimate of their respective 
 merits, though prone to periodical modifications, may be 
 summarized as follows : Hugh Boy, now officially installed as 
 Constable of Birt Castle on Lough Swilly, he guardedly describes 
 as " subtle, wise and civil." His wisdom he gave early proof 
 of, for his first piece of advice to Docwra was " to carry a hard 
 hand on such Irish as serve Her Majesty, for they care for no 
 man that doth not so."| This elementary truth, so obvious to 
 the Irish mind and so unintelligible to the English, must have 
 already been brought home to Docwra by the typical case of 
 McSweeney Fanad, who, when he was softly treated and his 
 cattle returned to him, at once rebelled, but who, when his 
 
 * Docwra Narration ; see also Four Masters, 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VII.-98.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 283 
 
 pledges were hanged and his country burned, no doubt on the 
 above-quoted advice ' given by Hugh Boy, became not only 
 submissive but permanently loyal. 
 
 To Neil Garv's character Docwra devotes far more atten- 
 tion, analysing it in detail in quite a number of his letters to 
 Headquarters, but always a little puzzled. The sum of his 
 earlier conclusions (afterwards modified) was that Neil Garv 
 was valiant in battle, but marring his valour by overmuch 
 boasting and exaggeration. Very vain and continually taking 
 offence at nothing. " He is prone to tyranny where he may 
 command, and to importunate beggary where he is subject ; 
 to extreme covetousness, whether he be rich or poor, and 
 unseasoned of any manner, discipline, knowledge or fear of 
 God." His brothers are described as being worse than himself 
 in every particular. Cormac is described as being of a more 
 mild, honest and satiable disposition by far than Neil Garv. 
 
 During the winter of 1600 to 1601 Cormac, Neil Garv and 
 his son Nachten were sent by Docwra to Dublin with the idea of 
 stimulating their loyalty by the process of personal contact 
 with the Queen's representative. This result may possibly 
 have been achieved, but what is quite certain is that Neil Garv 
 came back with an enormously inflated idea of his own import- 
 ance. He reached Derry at the end of April, and at once had 
 an interview with Docwra, which the latter records verbatim, 
 and which is of the deepest interest as an example of the 
 orthodox views of the Irish chiefs on the subject of their obliga- 
 tions towards those over whom they held sway. The interview, 
 which was carried on partly in Neil Garv's broken English 
 and partly through the interpretation of Captain Willis, opened 
 with a demand by Neil Garv that he should at once be established 
 as the O'Donnell. Docwra gives the rest of the conversation 
 as follows : 
 
 " Why." said I, " admitting that you shall be made lord of 
 all Tyrconnell, what is the prerogative that you would claim ? " 
 
 " I will cess my people," saith he ; " upon the churls I will 
 take such things as I want and employ the inhabitants at my 
 own discretion." 
 
 " For cutting upon the country," I answered, " it is so pool- 
 that Her Majesty was content for this year to forbear such 
 rights as she might otherwise justly impose." 
 
 He replied : " Let the Queen do with her rights what she
 
 284 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 will. Inishowen is mine, and were there but one cow in the 
 country, that cow would I take and use as mine own." 
 
 " And how would you provide for the poor people to live ? " 
 said I. 
 
 " I care not," saith he ; " let one thousand die, I pass not 
 a pin, and for my people they are my subjects. I will punish, 
 exact, cut and hang where and whenever I list."* 
 
 It is not to be supposed from the above that Neil Garv was 
 any more brutal than his compeers. He was only enunciating 
 doctrines which every chief in Ireland would have applauded 
 and endorsed. 
 
 A month after his return from Dublin, Neil Garv did Docwra 
 a signal service, for which the Governor was for ever gratefuL 
 Tyrone had given out that he was in Dungamion, but Neil 
 Garv, from his private sources of information, learned that he 
 was, in point of fact, in the Strabane country, and purposed 
 making a raid on the Dunalong cattle on the 26th day of that 
 month i.e., May. He imparted his news to Docwra, who, 
 on the day in question, sent off Neil Garv with his Irish, and 
 Captain Windsor with one hundred English, to lie in wait for 
 the enterprising Earl and his marauders. Neil Garv's informa- 
 tion proved quite correct, for presently Tyrone was seen coming 
 along with four hundred horsemen, all happily unconscious of 
 any ambush. At the psychological moment the Derry party, 
 with loud yells, made their attack. The yells in themselves 
 were enough, for Tyrone's men, without waiting for anything 
 more substantial, made off at top speed, headed by the Earl 
 himself. The pursuit which followed was kept up for six 
 miles, during which " a hundred " of the raiders were killed. 
 Tyrone himself was nearly caught more than once, his prin- 
 cipal pursuer being Neil Garv, who kept shouting to him to 
 turn and strike one blow if he was a gentleman, j The taunt, 
 however, was ineffectual, and Tyrone, who as usual was 
 very well mounted, got safely away. Twenty-five horses were 
 captured, and a number of arms which the raiders had flung 
 away in their flight. 
 
 This abortive raid was very certainly part of a larger scheme 
 prearranged with Hugh Roe, for on the very same morning 
 
 * Docwra to Privy Council, April 23rd, 1601. 
 
 f Capt. Covert to Cecil, May 31st, 1601 ; see also Capt. Willis to Cecil, 
 June 10th, 1601, and Docwra to Privy Council, June 10th, 1001.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 285 
 
 the Donegal chief, with twelve hundred men, made a similar 
 expedition into Inishowen ; but warning of this had also been 
 received, and he went home with no cattle and with an appre- 
 ciably smaller following than he had brought. 
 
 At the end of June Docwra captured Newtown, where he 
 left a garrison under Captain Atkinson, and simultaneously 
 Neil Garv captured Castle Derg. A fortnight later Omagh was 
 also added to the list of towns wrested from Tyrone, and Art 
 McHugh Mergoh, the minor chief in whose country the town 
 lay, was left in charge. Encouraged by these successes, 
 Docwra, accompanied by Neil Garv and Cormac, next set out 
 on an exploring expedition as far as Lough Erne, with the 
 idea of laying the foundation of a settlement at Ballyshannon. 
 In the matter of the proposed settlement nothing very definite 
 resulted from this journey, but Docwra succeeded in cap- 
 turing twelve hundred cattle during the march, of which five 
 hundred were brought safely back to Derry. The rest 
 mysteriously disappeared during the march home, having 
 as it afterwards turned out been surreptitiously secreted by 
 Cormac and Neil Garv ; but, as each of these two partners in 
 the fraud informed against the other, the bulk of the missing 
 prey was ultimately recovered.* 
 
 Here, then, for the moment we may leave the Derry settle- 
 ment. So far its success had been surprising, not so much in 
 relation to the resources at Docwra' s command, which were 
 quite sufficient for the purpose, but by comparison with previous 
 ventures of the same kind in other parts ot Ireland. The secret 
 of his success was simply that Docwra was a reasonably honest 
 man. It is not suggested that he was a paragon of all the 
 virtues. Such men did not offer themselves for the Irish 
 service, but he was at all events free from the taint of sordid 
 intrigue with an enemy whom he was paid to fight. 
 
 * Docwra to Privy Council, July 2nd, 1001.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 Mountjoy and Chichester's destruction of Tyrone's corn Docwra's reluctance 
 to adopt the same methods Tirlough McHenry's energy as a corn-destroyer 
 Mountjoy's justification of his policy. 
 
 WHILE Sir Henry Docwra was gradually reducing 
 Tyrone's hold on the north-west, Sir Arthur Chichester 
 was being little less energetic on the north-east side of the 
 province. Chichester's methods differed from Docwra's in 
 that they were frankly and avowedly brutal, whereas Docwra 
 was only brutal when circumstances forced brutality upon him. 
 While the latter was encouraging the Inishowen Irish to increase 
 their tillage and improve their methods of agriculture, Chichester 
 was deliberately working to bring about a comprehensive 
 famine in the district under his control. The full effects of 
 this heartless policy were not felt till a year later, and these 
 will be dealt with in their place. In the meanwhile, however, 
 it may be well to bear in mind that, though the odium insepar- 
 able from such drastic methods of conquest still attaches to 
 the name of Sir Arthur Chichester, it is impossible to avoid the 
 conclusion that the responsibility for them rested to a very 
 large extent on the Lord Deputy Mountjoy. Mountjoy was 
 undoubtedly the originator of the policy, and though Chichester 
 adopted it with an enthusiasm which outstripped that of his 
 superior, it was, first and last, Mountjoy's policy, and he him- 
 self set the example of putting it into practice. Fynes Moryson, 
 his secretary, tells us that one of his first acts on arriving at 
 the Blackwater was to cut down all the corn in the neighbour- 
 hood, and " he sent orders to Sir Henry Docwra and Sir Arthur 
 Chichester to do the same." Docwra at no time showed any 
 disposition to interpret his orders literally, and, in fact, never 
 made any real effort to carry them out, except when he was 
 dealing with O'Cahan's country on the east of the Foyle, which 
 
 286
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 287 
 
 was, in fact, part of Tyrone's country. To the west of the 
 Foyle if we except the isolated case of Fanad tillage and 
 husbandry were persistently encouraged, and in 1604, when 
 famine was devastating Antrim and Down, Docwra had the 
 gratification of being able to report that Inishowen was 
 ** abounding in houses, corn, cattle and people."* Mountjoy 
 justified his methods with perfect candour, and evidently 
 without consciousness that there was anything exceptionally 
 barbarous in what he was doing ; and it is to be doubted 
 whether any of his contemporaries, English or Irish, would 
 have condemned his methods as being in any way out of the 
 common. Tirlough McHenry, who was with Mountjoy in the 
 character of an ally, was, we are told, the foremost of any in 
 cutting down his half-brother's corn. ^ 
 
 Such of the English officials as thought it necessary to frame 
 a justification for the policy of fire and sword did so on the 
 ground that there was no other way. " If the rebels are 
 received to peace," Sir Oliver Lambert wrote to Cecil, " without 
 killing, burning and wasting, then Her Majesty may expect a 
 fresh war every year."J Fire and sword were, in fact, the 
 unpleasant necessities which were forced on the executive in 
 dealing with a people who invariably misunderstood clemency, 
 and abused it. Mountjoy's own explanation of his strong- 
 hand policy was rather on the ground of general expediency. 
 " Without corn," he wrote to the English Privy Council, " they 
 have no other means to keep their bonaghts, which are their 
 hired soldiers ; and this course, since our last despatch, we 
 have so earnestly applied as that we have destroyed an uncredible 
 amount of corn. ... If our means will serve to keep us together 
 till their harvest be past, we make no doubt but we shall utterly 
 break and undo them, for though they have that abundance 
 of corn that it is impossible for us to cut it all, yet, being here- 
 abouts, we shall give opportunity to the garrison to gather in 
 a good part, which will stand them in great stead. . . . The 
 corn which we have destroyed, besides feeding their bonaghts, 
 would have fed many Spaniards, had they come." 
 
 The responsibility for the corn-destroying policy, which 
 ultimately produced the famine of 1603, may have rested, and, 
 
 * Docwra Narration. 
 
 f Mountjoy to Cecil, Aug. 7th, 1601. 
 
 % Lambert to Cecil, March 7th, 1002.
 
 288 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 indeed, by the evidence of his own letter actually did rest, 
 with Mount joy ; but, none the less, Chichester still stands out 
 as by far the most ruthless of the three English commanders 
 who were gradually bringing about the subjugation of the 
 rebel Earl.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 Local affairs in Antrim Shane McBrian and Neil McHugh Their unreliability 
 Chichester's final allocation of lands to the native chiefs in Antrim 
 Con McNeil He attacks the Belfast garrison His imprisonment in 
 Carrickfergus Hugh Montgomery James Hamilton Con parts with his 
 estates in return for liberty Origin of the Scottish settlement in Ulster 
 Sir Edward Cromwell's purchases of land in County Down Death of James 
 McSorley Suspicion of poison Randall McSorle'y succeeds His capture 
 of Sir James McDonnell Cause of the rupture between Randall and Sir 
 James The latter is imprisoned in Dunluce. 
 
 'THHE parochial doings of the petty Ulster chiefs, their 
 internecine feuds, their rebellions, repentances, absolu- 
 tions and lapses are mainly and, indeed, perhaps solely- 
 interesting as milestones or finger-posts leading up by gradual 
 stages to the situation at the present day. From this point 
 of view, there is a live interest, and, indeed, an actual import- 
 ance, in following the kaleidoscopic movements which gradu- 
 ally settled down into the configuration identified with the 
 modern counties of Down and Antrim. We last left the two 
 rival chiefs of North Clandeboye, Shane McBrian and Neil 
 McHugh, as companions in Carrickfergus Castle, both having 
 been there imprisoned as the penalty for their betrayal of 
 their respective trusts of Belfast and Edenduffcarrick. These 
 lapses from good behaviour had occurred just prior to Sir John 
 Chichester's arrival as Governor, and that energetic warrior 
 had quickly recaptured both these important strongholds, and 
 had taken the two delinquents up to Dublin with him, where 
 Loftus and Wallop who were at this time administering the 
 Government during the absence of Lord Burgh had pro- 
 nounced on both the cousins the very mild penalty of tem- 
 porary incarceration in Carrickfergus. In January, 1598, 
 Neil McHugh had managed to effect his escape,* and very 
 shortly afterwards made an abortive attempt to capture 
 
 * Cl. State Papers, Vol. 202-22. 
 
 289 19
 
 290 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Edenduffcarrick. For this act there was some justification 
 in the piratical conduct of the English garrison, who, under an 
 unprincipled commander, had robbed and spoiled the neigh- 
 bouring peasants. Chichester, recognizing that the provocation 
 offered had been very great, not only overlooked Neil's offence, 
 but went to the length of removing the offending commander, 
 and of once more reinstating Neil McHugh as Constable of 
 Edenduffcarrick. For two years Neil appears to have behaved 
 reasonably well ; but in December, 1600, moved no doubt by 
 the knowledge of the approaching Spanish invasion, he once 
 more betrayed the Castle, together with all Chichester's fleet of 
 boats, into the hands of Tyrone.* This second act of treachery 
 proved too much for the patience of Sir Arthur Chichester, 
 who. had by this time taken his younger brother's place. He 
 quickly recaptured the lost Castle, but he for ever lost all faith 
 in the reliability of Neil McHugh. 
 
 Shane had remained all this time a prisoner, but finally 
 sickened by Neil McHugh's repeated acts of treachery 
 Chichester went up with Shane to Dublin, with a view to 
 recommending his pardon, and to re-establishing him as the 
 chief of North Clandeboye in place of his untrustworthy cousin. 
 In advocating this step he was frankly advocating the lesser 
 of two evils. He well knew that both the cousins were quite 
 undependable. " They are so false and hollow-hearted," he 
 wrote to Cecil, shortly after his return from Dublin, " that 
 there is little trust or dependency upon their oaths, pledges or 
 promises."f Each of the two habitually accused the other 
 of every species of infamy, and, when put to the test himself, 
 proved worthy of his own description. Shane's record, how- 
 ever, was, on the whole, less objectionable than that of his 
 cousin, and, on Chichester's recommendation, this son of 
 Brian McPhelim was once more given a trial. It is to be 
 assumed that, with the advance of years, Shane's treasonable 
 activities had become to a certain extent impaired, for the 
 experiment would seem to have been quite successful ; and, in 
 the final redistribution of 1605, we find Shane, still evidently 
 the exemplary subject, allotted ten thousand acres in the 
 southern part of North Clandeboye, while the children of the 
 less exemplary Neil had to be content with four thousand acres 
 
 * Chichester to Cecil, April 12th, 1601. f lbid -
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 291 
 
 further north, and Rory McQuillin with two thousand acres 
 beyond again.* The Route and the Glynns were, at the same 
 time, officially vested in Randall McSorley, by that time known 
 as Sir Randall McDonnell, who had managed, by posing as a 
 compatriot, to extract from James I. a grant of the entire 
 coast-line from Larne to the Bann. 
 
 We can now turn for a moment to South Clandeboye. Here, 
 it will be remembered, that on the death of Con McNeil Oge, 
 the tentatively loyal Neil McBrian Feartagh had been estab- 
 lished as chief. He was a weak but harmless man, who 
 changed sides with each ebb and flow of the tide of war, but 
 who, even when nominally hostile, was guiltless of any enor- 
 mities. When this man died in February, 1601, Chichester, 
 without hesitation, established his son Con McNeil in his 
 father's place, in preference to a rival candidate in the person 
 of one Owen McHugh. Con did not repay Chichester's con- 
 fidence in the way that was hoped, for on the arrival of the 
 Spaniards at Kinsale in September of the same year, he in 
 common with almost every chief in Ireland jumped to the 
 conclusion that the millennium had arrived, and, in order to 
 be an early participator in its loaves and fishes, went over 
 bodily to Tyrone. In place, however, of the expected millen- 
 nium came the news of Tyrone's complete overthrow, and 
 Con, to his painful surprise, found himself on the losing side.f 
 He was imprisoned in Carrickfergus, and Shane McBrian, 
 who certainly had it to his credit that he had not joined 
 Tyrone on the invasion of the Spaniards (he having been 
 in prison at the time), was given temporary sway over 
 South Clandeboye in addition to his own proportion of North 
 Clandeboye. 
 
 Con was soon pardoned on account of his youth and inex- 
 perience, and reinstated in Castlereagh, which was the prin- 
 cipal fortress of South Clandeboye. Here he behaved himself 
 with decency and decorum for a year, but in 1603 he was guilty 
 of a lapse the consequences of which were so momentous as to 
 entirely revolutionize the history of Ulster. 
 
 The facts of the case are as follows : Con was indulging in 
 a pleasant carouse at Castlereagh. So successful and so pro- 
 
 * Cal. State Papers (James), 588. 
 f Chichester to Cecil, Sept. 8th, 1601. 
 
 I 9 *
 
 292 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 tracted was the entertainment, that he ran out of wine, and 
 sent some men of his to Belfast to fetch more. The men 
 returned very drunk indeed, but without the wine, and with a 
 story that the English soldiers had fallen upon them and taken 
 it from them by force. The thirsty Con, furious at his dis- 
 appointment, threatened his men with the most gruesome 
 penalties if they did not at once return and avenge this insult 
 on the persons of the English soldiers. He himself led them 
 back till within striking distance, when he prudently withdrew 
 to a convenient hill from which he could watch operations. 
 The men, who were still very drunk, made an effort to do as 
 directed, but were easily beaten off, and some of them were 
 killed.* For this unprovoked act of aggression (for Con's 
 men had of course drunk the wine themselves and in- 
 vented the story of its seizure by the English), Con was 
 imprisoned in Carrickfergus, but was allowed full liberty to 
 walk about the town accompanied by a single sentry as 
 guard. 
 
 A certain Scotsman, named Sir Hugh Montgomery, had a 
 small barque with which he used to trade backwards and 
 forwards between Carrickfergus and Scotland, and he now 
 came forward with an offer to set Con at liberty if the latter 
 would make over to him half his lands. Con joyfully accepted 
 the condition, provided Sir Hugh made pretence of carrying 
 him off by force. This was agreed to, and the comedy was duly 
 carried out as planned. Con and his pretended captor got 
 safely away to Scotland, and from there made their way to 
 London, where the King ratified the transaction. Before it 
 was finally carried through, however, one James Hamilton, for 
 reasons which are very far from clear, became a partner in the 
 deal, with the result that Con had to be content with one-third 
 of his lands instead of the half originally agreed. To this rather 
 questionable modification of the agreement Con seems to have 
 raised no objection, being apparently quite satisfied to find him- 
 self a free man and the possessor of twenty-two thousand acres. 
 Unfortunately, however, he had not the strength of mind to 
 retain possession of these, but, bribed by the lure of ready 
 money, disposed of them later on to Hamilton and Montgomery, f 
 This arrangement was not as unfavourable to Con as might 
 
 * Hamilton MSS. 
 
 t In return for a cash payment of 60 and an annual rent of 160.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 293 
 
 appear, for the lands at the time were desolate and denuded 
 of population ; but it constituted a distinct hardship on his 
 son Daniel, who, on the death of his father, found himself 
 landless and penniless. The hardship of Daniel's case, how- 
 ever, was duly recognized by Charles I., and he received special 
 consideration from the Government. 
 
 While Hamilton and Montgomery were carrying through the 
 above-described deal, Sir Edward Cromwell, in County Down, 
 had bought from McCartan part of his country, and later on 
 acquired a considerable tract of land in Lecale. All these pur- 
 chases of land were facilitated by the desolation and unproduc- 
 tiveness of these portions of Down and Antrim consequent 
 upon Chichester's famine. King James's ratification of the 
 transfers contained the proviso that the purchased lands were 
 to be exclusively peopled with English or inland Scots, and in 
 this way was laid the foundation-stone of the great Ulster 
 Plantation. 
 
 By the time the Government was ready to deal with the 
 question of the six counties forfeited on account of Tyrone's 
 rebellion, a colony of Anglo-Saxon families had spread over 
 the greater part of Ulster's two north-eastern counties. The 
 coast-line between Glenarm and the Bann, and the lands 
 behind known as the Route and the Glynns, were unaffected 
 by these changes, and still remained in the hands of the High- 
 land Scotch. 
 
 Local disturbances in these districts had been occasioned 
 by the death of James McSorley at Dunluce Castle in April, 
 1601. The conditions surrounding his death were so peculiar 
 as to give rise to the rumour that he had been poisoned by his 
 surgeon, William Linn, bribed to the act by an emissary of 
 Chichester. The evidence in support of this story is, however, 
 anonymous and not very convincing. Sir James's first wife 
 had been a daughter of old Phelim Bacagh, but he had later on 
 married a nine-year-old daughter of Tyrone.* He left nine 
 sons, but none of these benefited in any way by his death, for 
 his brother Randall, by virtue of the tanistry custom, at once 
 stepped into his position, and took command of the armed forces 
 of the Route. Randall's first venture as commander-in-chief 
 was singularly fortunate. He intercepted Sir James McDonnell 
 
 * Cal. State Paper*, Vol. aol-67-2 nd 201-70.
 
 294 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 ( Angus' s eldest son), who, in company with Henry O'Hagan 
 and eighty of Tyrone's horsemen, was returning from a con- 
 sultation with the Earl. The surprised party, which was pre- 
 sumably outnumbered, took to its heels, but not before Sir 
 James had been taken prisoner. It was reported at the time 
 that Henry O'Hagan (the eldest son of Art Bradagh O'Hagan) 
 had been killed during the encounter, but this turned out to 
 be untrue. 
 
 The explanation of the above affair is as follows : Old Angus 
 now lived entirely in Cantyre. He was generally drunk, and 
 had lost all interest in the lands which he had once owned in 
 Ulster. His eldest son James, wearying of his father's incon- 
 venient longevity, made an unfilial attempt to make away 
 with him ; but, being foiled in this, had to flee for his life to 
 Ireland, where he at once started intriguing with Tyrone with 
 a view to the restitution of his lands in the Glynns, which 
 Randall had usurped. 
 
 A convenient lever with which to bring pressure to bear on 
 Tyrone had been placed in Sir James's hands by Elizabeth's 
 recent change of attitude in the matter of Scotch mercenary 
 troops. After many years of hesitation, she had at last so far 
 made up her mind to the use of these at Lough Foyle as to start 
 serious negotiations on the subject with one Achinross, resident 
 in Cantyre.* Achinross was merely an agent or intermediary, 
 and the only sources on which he could draw for his supplies 
 of men Were the Campbells, Macleans, or McDonnells. Of these, 
 the McDonnells were the strongest, and it was with these that 
 he actually started negotiations. Old Angus was still loyal 
 to the Queen, and willing to help her to the utmost limits of 
 his powers, but those powers had to a great extent passed out 
 of his hands, and negotiations as in the time of Essex had 
 mainly to be conducted through the medium of his sons. Of 
 these, James was already in Ulster, and, taking advantage of 
 the situation, he lost no time in approaching Tyrone with a 
 view to putting forward a counter-offer, which was, in effect, 
 that the Scotch army chartered for the Queen by Achinross 
 should be at Tyrone's disposal in return for his guarantee that 
 the Glynns would be restored to the line of Angus. The Earl, 
 it need scarcely be said, was deeply interested, and James was, 
 
 * Privy Council to Docwra, Nov. 5th, 160O.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 295 
 
 as a matter of fact, on his return under escort from an interview 
 with Tyrone on this very subject, when Randall, who had got 
 news of his intentions, managed to turn the tables, as above 
 described, by capturing his cousin. Tyrone's men scurried 
 back to their master, and Sir James went as a prisoner to 
 Dunluce Castle.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 Chichester builds a fleet of boats for Lough Neagh His massacre of Patrick 
 O'Quin's family Mountjoy visits Carrickfergus His military tour of 
 Down His moderation Submission of Arthur Magennis and Patrick 
 McArt Moyle Mountjoy reaches the Blackwater Tyrone's army prepares 
 to bar his way Mountjoy's determined advance His astonishment at the 
 precipitate flight of the Irish Skirmish at Benburb Arrival of the Spanish 
 Fleet at Kinsale. 
 
 SIR ARTHUR CHICHESTER was a man of untiring 
 energy and of feverish zeal in the service of his Queen. 
 During the winter of 1600 he built a boat of thirty tons, another 
 of fourteen tons, two of ten tons each, and a number of smaller 
 craft, all of which were launched on Lough Neagh and ready 
 for use by the spring of 1601.* These were the boats which 
 Neil McHugh afterwards delivered into Tyrone's hands when 
 he betrayed the Castle of Edenduffcarrick. Tyrone's desire 
 to get possession of the fleet is easily understood, for its pre- 
 sence on the waters of Lough Neagh opened up his country to 
 attack from all sorts of unexpected quarters. 
 
 The baptism of Chichester' s new fleet was a bloody cere- 
 mony. In May he transported a force across to the western 
 shore of Lough Neagh, with the idea of making it quite clear 
 to the rebel Earl that the day was passed when his territory 
 was only vulnerable by way of the Blackwater fort, which at 
 the moment was in the hands of the enemy. Chichester 
 carried out his enterprise with his customary thoroughness and 
 brutality. His selected victim was one Patrick O'Quin, who 
 lived four miles only from Dungannon, and who, in order to 
 furnish an illustration of the length of Chichester' s arm, was 
 wiped off the face of the earth, together with his family and 
 all his belongings, f 
 
 Chichester had hardly returned from this bloody raid before 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, May 31st, 1602. 
 t Chichester to Cecil, May 15th, 1601. 
 
 296
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 29? 
 
 he received a visit from the Deputy. Mountjoy had by now 
 assured the lines of communication between Dundalk and 
 Newry by adopting the obvious precaution of building a fort 
 in the Moyerie Pass at the Three Mile Water. Sir Samuel 
 Bagenel was brought down from Newry and put in charge of 
 this new fort (a distinct degradation), while Sir Francis Stafford 
 was promoted to the governorship of Newry. Having by this 
 admirable stroke eliminated the chief obstacle to the invasion of 
 the north, the Deputy then passed on to Newry, and from there 
 struck off to the east through Magennis's country (Iveagh) to 
 Lecale. The object of this last move was to bring the recal- 
 citrant Arthur Magennis to his senses. With this end in view, 
 all Magennis's Castles were taken out of his hands and garrisoned 
 with English troops. Magennis's rule was declared at an end, 
 and Sir Richard Moryson was established as Governor of 
 Iveagh and Lecale with his headquarters at Down.* 
 
 It was the time-honoured practice of the native Irish to visit 
 the sins of the chief on the heads of the people over whom he 
 ruled, the basic idea at the back of the practice being that, as 
 the chief's people were the sources from which he drew his 
 revenue, it was a financial annoyance to the chief to have them 
 killed. In pursuance of this principle, we have seen Farney 
 and Magee Island raided, and the peasants killed by Tyrone 
 in the one case and by James McSorley hi the other with the 
 sole idea of injuring the Earl of Essex, who was the English 
 grantee. Later on again, we find Tyrone on two occasions 
 burning, killing and spoiling the O'Carrols' and Sir Theobald 
 Dillon's tenants in Westmeath for no other reason than that 
 their landlord had refused to join him. j Had he been guided by 
 native precedents, Mountjoy would have been fully justified in 
 exacting a bloody retribution from the peasants of Iveagh and 
 Kilwarlin for the defection of their lords. He did not. As far as 
 can be judged from the contemporary records there was no 
 bloodshed during this tour, or, at any rate, no bloodshed ol 
 non-combatants. 
 
 In June Mountjoy passed on from Lecale, through McCartan's 
 
 * Fynes Moryson. 
 
 f Chichester writing to the Privy Council on Sept. 8th, 1007, with regard to 
 this practice says : "These people being apt to think that the ollVnres of tlu-ir 
 lords are punishable on them, how innocent soever, are apt to run into disorder, 
 and to remove their fears they have Commissioners to assure them of His Majesty's 
 gracious disposition towards them."
 
 298 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 country, to Carrickfergus, where he met Chichester, who had 
 just returned from an expedition which could certainly not be 
 called bloodless (the butchery of the O'Quins). It Would be 
 interesting to know whether the two had any argument as to 
 the relative merits of their respective methods. 
 
 The reason for Mount joy's visit to Carrickfergus was that 
 he had originally planned to work round along the coast from 
 that point to Lough Foyle, keeping in touch with a victualling 
 fleet which was to have arrived from England. The fleet, 
 however as was not uncommon in such cases -did not come, 
 and Mount joy, being short of provisions, was obliged to dis- 
 band the bulk of his small force of twelve hundred men into 
 the most convenient garrisons in the neighbourhood, including 
 those recently established in Magennis's country. Mount joy 
 himself, with a remarkable disregard of personal danger, 
 returned to Dundalk with only three companies in attendance. 
 
 Mount joy's expedition through County Down, bloodless 
 though it had been, was not without its effect, for he had no 
 sooner got back to Dundalk than Arthur Magennis and Patrick 
 McArt Moyle (the betrayer of Monaghan) presented themselves 
 before him and tendered their humble submission. Each was 
 fined three hundred cows (for the use of the troops, and not 
 as in old days for the Deputy's own pocket), and so were sent 
 away absolved. Having by these very opportune fines re- 
 plenished his commissariat, Mount joy, on July llth, once more 
 started for^the^north with an army of sixteen hundred men, 
 and on the 13th reached Mount Norris. Here he stayed one 
 night with Captain Blaney, and on the following morning set out 
 for the Blackwater. This fort, as already recounted, had been 
 lost to the English after Bagenal's defeat at the Yellow Ford. 
 Captain Blaney had retaken it with the Mount Norris garrison 
 about four months before the Deputy's visit, but he had been 
 unable to garrison it, and it had once again fallen into Tyrone's 
 hands. The river Blackwater being, so to speak, Tyrone's 
 park fence, and the country beyond it the forbidden ground 
 on which no English were to tread, every conceivable device 
 had been adopted by which Mount joy's passage of the ford 
 could be barred. 
 
 The Lord Deputy took up his position on the south side of 
 the river, and Tyrone with all his forces did the like on the 
 north side, with a derisive display of the banners, drums and
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 299 
 
 trumpets taken in the Yellow Ford battle. A defiant volley or 
 two was also fired at the Deputy's force, but the distance was 
 too great for any effect. Mountjoy had brought with him a 
 rabinet and a falcon, and not to be outdone in noise he now 
 fired one round from the latter across the river, upon which 
 Tyrone's entire army vanished as if by magic and was seen 
 no more that day. There were no casualties on either side, 
 but, no doubt in deference to the noise or the intention, the 
 Four Masters describe the day's proceedings as ".a fierce 
 and furious battle." 
 
 On the following day Mountjoy went down to the ford, on 
 the far side of which Tyrone had posted his army in a most 
 elaborate system of trenches. Mountjoy, encouraged by the 
 success of his experiment of the day before, gave them one 
 shot from the rabinet, but this time with no effect, the defenders 
 realizing no doubt that they were safer from this form of attack 
 in their trenches than in the open behind. Mountjoy then 
 ordered Captain Williams to attempt the ford at the old fort, 
 while Sir Henry Danvers and Sir Henry Folliott simultaneously 
 attacked the fords above and below. This determined advance 
 proved too severe a trial for the fortitude of Tyrone's army, 
 and they did not await further developments. " The Irish fired 
 some volleys of shot out of their spyke- holes," Fenton wrote to 
 Cecil, " but when they saw the companies resolved to enter 
 the water, they quit their trenches and ran to the woods."* 
 Mountjoy was no less elated than surprised at this unexpectedly 
 easy victory, for the position offered every opportunity for a 
 fierce and stubborn defence, which might have cost his army 
 dear. " Upon view of the trenches made upon every ford," 
 Fynes Moryson, who was present on the occasion, writes, " his 
 lordship found them so strongly and artificially fortified, 
 wondering much that they should either so laboriously fortify 
 them if they meant not to defend them, or should so cowardly 
 quit such strong places and so suddenly, if they had former 
 resolution to make them good."f 
 
 On July 16th Mountjoy took with him Sir Christopher St. 
 Lawrence's regiment of Irish, and went up the river to Benburb. 
 Tyrone appeared in strength, but at a prudent distance. 
 Gradually all Mountjoy's forces came up, and the whole day 
 was occupied in long-range skirmishes with the enemy, during 
 
 * Fenton to Cecil, July, 1601. f Fyn Moryon.
 
 800 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 which Captain Williams' s leg was broken by a bullet, and the 
 Government force in all had twenty-five killed and seventy 
 wounded. We have no figures as to the Irish losses, which 
 were probably insignificant, as they had the advantage of 
 cover from the woods. The Bishop of Meath, however, was 
 more optimistic, and in a letter to Sir George Carey he remarked 
 with bloodthirsty piety, that " the loss to the rebels is thought 
 to be great God's name be blessed ! " 
 
 That gallant soldier, Captain Williams, after having had his 
 leg set by the army surgeon, was once more left in command 
 of the Blackwater fort, and the Deputy returned to Dundalk. 
 Nothing, however, was further from his thoughts than to remain 
 inactive and leave the work to others. He spent the whole of 
 August in riding backwards and forwards between Dundalk 
 and the Blackwater, so as to keep in touch with the reconstruc- 
 tion work, and to see to the strengthening of his lines of com- 
 munication. In this month he once more renewed the pro- 
 clamation offering a reward for the Earl of Tyrone dead or 
 alive, but for some curious and unexplained reason the prize- 
 money was now reduced by half, two thousand marks being 
 offered for the rebel chief alive and one thousand dead. The 
 offer produced no better response than before, and before 
 Mountjoy had time to judge of its effect the entire situation in 
 Ireland was changed by the sudden materialization of the long- 
 expected Spanish invasion in the south. Early in September 
 forty-three galleons sailed proudly into Kinsale harbour, and 
 there landed some 4,500 men, who took possession of the pro- 
 montory to the east of the town. Leaving Ulster for the time 
 to look after itself, Mountjoy, with all the available forces he 
 could raise, hurried down to Munster to meet this new danger. 
 On September 27th he reached Cork, where he spent three weeks 
 in collecting and organizing his force, and on October 16th 
 continued his march to Kinsale at the head of 4,300 men.* 
 
 * Fynes Moryson.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 Excitement in Ireland consequent upon the arrival of the Spaniards General 
 belief in the overthrow of the English Defection of the friendly chiefs 
 Tirlough McGilson IDs treacherous seizure of Newtown Docwra's intense 
 surprise Art McHugh Mergoh at Castle Derg Hugh Boy appointed arbi- 
 trator in the Inishowen case He nominates himself supreme chief Deadly 
 enmity between Neil Garv and Hugh Roe The case of Donegal Castle 
 Explosion in the magazine Neil Garv's supposed complicity Docwra's 
 belief in his innocence Relief of Donegal Castle by Docwra. 
 
 r I ""HE excitement aroused in Ulster by the coming of the 
 JL Spaniards was intense. Every sort of wild speculative 
 rumour was afloat as to the magical benefits which would be 
 showered upon the country as the result of this influx of 
 England's enemies. These rumours were none the less exciting 
 in that they were wholly nebulous and vague, as, indeed, from 
 their very nature they were bound to be. Altogether apart 
 from speculative rumours, however, the known facts were in 
 themselves quite sufficient to fill the Irish with a reasonable 
 hope that the ball of victory now at length lay at their feet. A 
 dispassionate review of the circumstances cannot but lead to the 
 admission that such hopes were in substance justified. For 
 ten years past Tyrone's rebellion had defied suppression. During 
 the latter part of this period it had been freely given out, among 
 the inner circles of the Irish, that the Earl was merely playing 
 with the English authorities by temporary submissions, pre- 
 tences of loyalty, etc., until such time as the arrival of the 
 Spaniards should make him strong enough to throw off the 
 mask, and to annihilate the dupes with whom he had been 
 temporizing. That moment, in the public opinion, had now 
 come. If Tyrone, unaided, could hold the English forces for 
 ten years, it seemed a foregone conclusion that, with the invin- 
 cible Spaniards at his side, he could sweep all before him. 
 The only factor in the case which was lost sight of, and which, 
 indeed, was not within the knowledge of many, was that a 
 
 301
 
 302 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 genuine man had now at last taken the place of the succession 
 of shuffling intriguers who for five-and-twenty years had 
 governed Ireland. The most noticeable outcome of the sudden 
 change in the situation was the promptitude with which the 
 native Irish adherents of the Government went over to the 
 winning side, or to what they had little doubt at the time was 
 going to prove the winning side. The first to go over was 
 Tirlough McHenry, who a month earlier had been such an 
 enthusiastic destroyer of the rebels' corn that it was said he 
 resented any man's efforts to cut more than he did himself. 
 His example was at once followed by Tirlough Luineach's 
 son Cormac, to the intense mortification of Sir Henry 
 Docwra. Cormac had always been Docwra's favourite 
 Irish ally, and his disaffection went far to shake the 
 Governor's belief in the reliability of the native element. 
 His faith, however, was shortly to receive a ruder shock 
 still. When Cormac went over to Tyrone, his company 
 of Irish was given by Docwra to one Tirlough McGilson. 
 Docwra's confidence in this man was very firmly established. 
 In August, 1601, shortly before the above-mentioned appoint- 
 ment, Docwra informed the English Privy Council that " Tir- 
 lough McGilson, of all the Irish without exception in the nature 
 of a wasting kerne, hath absolutely done the best service and 
 discovered most of his countrymen's lewdness." Nor was 
 Docwra the only man who liked and believed in the friendly 
 McGilson. Captain Atkinson, the Constable of Newtown, 
 thoroughly approved of Docwra's selection, and at once wrote 
 asking that McGilson might be sent to help him at Newtown, as 
 he was not only a personal friend of his own, but a man 
 who knew all the country round by heart, and who would 
 therefore be of the greatest assistance both as guide and as an 
 adviser. 
 
 Accordingly McGilson and his new company of Irish were 
 transferred to Newtown, but with results very different from 
 those anticipated by either Docwra or Atkinson ; for, after a 
 few days of friendly intercourse, the harmony of the mixed 
 garrison was disturbed in the following startling manner. 
 McGilson enticed the unsuspecting Atkinson down to the banks 
 of the Mourne on some plausible pretext, and there suddenly 
 caused him to be seized and bound by a number of his men 
 who were concealed there for the purpose, while the remainder
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 808 
 
 of the Irish garrison fell upon their unsuspecting English com- 
 rades and murdered every man of them in cold blood.* 
 
 Docwra's distress and astonishment at this unexpected 
 development was very great. " The man was so well known," 
 he wrote, " and trusted and beloved of all men. He had served 
 among us since Art O'Neil first came in, and has to my know- 
 ledge delivered up at least twenty spies to be hanged, and has 
 killed with his own hand not so few as two hundred people of 
 his own nation. He lived intimately with Atkinson, and had 
 received so many gifts from him that I think no man would 
 have believed his being a traitor ; but my own conclusion is 
 that, out of the mere disposition of a perfidious nature, delight- 
 ing in the very qualities of evil, he was moved thereunto by a 
 sudden and mere instigation of the devil, and so doth himself 
 confess, making offer to redeem his offence by a like murder 
 upon the contrary side, so he may withal be well rewarded for 
 his labour."f 
 
 Docwra's astonishment at McGilson's lapse is understand- 
 able, but to us the explanation of his conduct is simple enough. 
 He had heard of the arrival of the Spaniards in Munster (which 
 Docwra at the time of his writing had not), and hoped to win 
 favour with Tyrone by putting Newtown into his hands. His 
 opportunism was, however, as it turned out, miscalculated. 
 
 Further evidence of the sudden insanity which had fallen 
 upon the Province was furnished by the case of Castle Derg, 
 which, in many respects, was very similar to that of Newtown 
 so similar, in fact, as to make it tolerably clear that both inci- 
 dents were part of the same plot. These are the facts with 
 regard to Castle Derg. On the morning following the seizure of 
 Newtown, Art McHugh Mergoh, whom Docwra had appointed 
 Constable of Omagh, rode up to Castle Derg, and asked for an 
 interview with Captain Dutton, who was in charge. Dutton, 
 who had heard nothing of the Newtown disaster, came out 
 without hesitation, and walked down with Art McHugh to the 
 banks of the Derg, where he was seized and bound in very 
 much the same way that Captain Atkinson had been seized and 
 bound. Here, however, the exact parallel ceased, for there 
 were no Irish within the walls of Castle Derg to put the finish- 
 ing touches to the transaction. Art McHugh was therefore 
 
 * Docwra Narration. 
 
 f Docwra to Privy Council of England, Sept. 28th, 1001.
 
 304 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 forced to less direct methods in order to get the Castle into his 
 hands. He informed the Lieutenant, on whom the command 
 had devolved, that he would at once hang his Captain unless 
 the Castle were given up to him. The threat, however, failed to 
 move the Lieutenant, who possibly agreed with Docwra that 
 Button richly deserved hanging for being such a fool as to be 
 taken in, after the repeated warnings he had received.* Art 
 McHugh did not in the end carry out his threat, and Button 
 was eventually restored to Bocwra, in whose estimation, how- 
 ever, he never regained his lost place. 
 
 This succession of disappointments seriously shook Boewra's 
 belief in his judgment of character, and he began to have doubts 
 even of Hugh Boy. That young gentleman, however, had 
 rendered very material service to the Governor by an act 
 for which Bocwra could not be otherwise than grateful. He had 
 warned the Berry Governor, earlier in the year, that a Spanish 
 force would most certainly land in Munster before Christinas. 
 Bocwra had passed the information on to Mount joy, who was 
 wise enough to take it as a serious warning, which indeed it 
 had proved. Bocwra's gratitude took a practical shape. He 
 appointed Hugh Boy sole commissioner to arbitrate on the 
 dispute between Phelim and Cahir O'Bogherty as to the suc- 
 cession to the chiefry of Inishowen. Hugh Boy, feeling doubt- 
 less some reluctance to favour one of the claimants at the 
 expense of the other, settled the matter by dispossessing both 
 the O'Boghertys, and nominating himself chief of Inishowen. 
 Such was Bocwra's infatuation at the time that he actually 
 endorsed this outrageous act of piracy, and established the 
 usurper in the Castle of Birt. 
 
 The chief of Inishowen was, of necessity, the caterer for the 
 wants of the Berry garrison, and it is quite clear that a desire 
 to hold this office was at the back of Hugh Boy's high-handed 
 proceeding ; for he at once started exacting the most exorbitant 
 prices for the country produce, his greed in this respect even 
 surpassing that of his predecessor, Sir John O'Bogherty. 
 This unreasonable rapacity not unnaturally disgusted Bocwra, 
 and when as above narrated three of his other selected 
 favourites had in quick succession proved false, he lost all 
 faith in human nature, and, for fear of worse, removed Hugh 
 Boy from his self-appointed post and re-established Cahir 
 
 * Docwra Narration.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 805 
 
 O'Dogherty in his inheritance. Hugh Boy seems to have 
 accepted the rebuff with a good grace, and remained at any 
 rate nominally loyal to the end, for he was still in Docwra's 
 service when he was killed. 
 
 Neil Garv, who had been the most suspected, and certainly 
 the most disliked of all Docwra's original Irish allies, was now 
 the only one left him. His loyalty had so far been fairly well 
 assured, for he had been playing a game in which the assistance 
 of the Governor was a necessary factor to the realization of his 
 schemes. His loyalty was still further assured by the deadly 
 enmity existing between him and Hugh Roe. For this enmity 
 there were several most cogent reasons. First and foremost, 
 Neil Garv was trying to usurp the position of the O'Donnell ; 
 he had killed Hugh Roe's brother ; Hugh Roe had killed his 
 infant son ; Hugh Roe had offered a big reward for his head, 
 and had, moreover, as we have seen, attempted to bribe Captain 
 Olphert to hand over Neil Garv at the same time as the fort of 
 Culmore, in which case there is little doubt that Neil Garv's 
 head would have speedily parted from his body. In such 
 circumstances it is hardly conceivable that the two men should 
 have been in amicable conspiracy against the English. 
 
 Allegations to this effect were freely circulated, but Docwra 
 was always sceptical, and nothing, as a matter of fact, was ever 
 proved even in connection with the Donegal Castle explosion, 
 as to which the ill-natured hinted that Neil Garv was privy. 
 The facts of this case are as follows : On August 2nd, 1601, 
 Neil Garv and bis brother Con, together with Captains Rande, 
 Orrel and Gore, and five hundred men, were sent to occupy 
 Donegal Castle and the Abbey attached to it. Nothing of 
 striking interest occurred for the first two months, but at the 
 beginning of October the garrison was besieged by no less a 
 person than Hugh Roe himself, backed up by all the forces 
 he could muster. It is more than probable that, in making 
 this attempt upon the Castle, Hugh Roe's main objective was 
 the person of Neil Garv, whose destruction was of far more 
 importance to him than the destruction of the English garrison. 
 The siege, however, which was in the nature of a blockade, 
 made no impression upon those within the walls beyond 
 reducing their food supplies to a very low ebb. On Michaelmas 
 Day, as a result either of mischance or of treachery, a fire broke 
 out in the Abbey, which was being utilized as the powdfi 
 
 20
 
 306 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 magazine. A tremendous explosion followed, which was so 
 immediately succeeded by an attack from the Irish as to suggest 
 that the occurrence had not been altogether unexpected ; 
 in fact, the Four Masters' version of the incident practically 
 admits that the explosion was expected. The attack was 
 beaten off, but Captain Rande, a sergeant and twenty-six men 
 were killed by the explosion, and Neil Gary's brother Con was 
 so badly injured by the falling of a wall that he subsequently 
 died.* The Store House, Provost House and Castle remained 
 intact, but all the powder was lost, together with two hundred 
 pounds in money and a large quantity of provisions. Outside 
 of these minor calamities the explosion had little practical effect 
 on the progress of the siege. That it was the work of someone 
 within the walls is beyond doubt, but that Neil Garv had any 
 hand in it is improbable in the extreme. Docwra's report of 
 the affair was to the effect that Neil Garv had behaved very 
 well, both before and after the explosion. In any case, the 
 salient fact stands out that, in spite of the great straits to 
 which the garrison was subsequently put for food, the place 
 was successfully held by Neil Garv till Hugh Roe was forced 
 to march south at the beginning of November to join the 
 Spaniards at Kinsale. Docwra then himself relieved the 
 garrison from their unpleasant position, and it was on his 
 return march from this expedition that he devastated 
 McSweeney Fanad's country in the manner already described. 
 
 * Docwra Narration ; see also Four Masters.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 Tyrone's failure to co-operate with the Spaniards His many excuses to avoid 
 the decisive battle Numerical superiority of Tyrone's army Its admirable 
 equipment Disgust of the Spaniards at Tyrone's procrastination Tyrone 
 devastates Louth and Meath He returns to Dungannon He eventually 
 marches south He reaches Kinsale on December 21st Arrangements for 
 attack Betrayal of the scheme by Brian McHugh Ogc Battle of Kinsale 
 
 
 Rout of the Irish Indignation of the Spaniards. 
 
 AGERLY anticipated events are very apt to fall short 
 JL_1/ of expectation, and even to arrive in strange and 
 unlooked-for garbs. For years past the Irish had been fed on 
 the doctrine that the coming of the Spaniards was the only 
 constituent lacking from the synthesis of happy events which 
 was to bring about the millennium in Ireland. Tyrone himself 
 had for ten years placarded this advertisement over all the 
 blank walls of Ulster. The good things to which it pro- 
 phetically pointed were in equal parts material and spiritual. 
 .The " pagan beasts," as he labels the English in a letter to 
 McCarthy More,* were to be consumed by fire and sword, and 
 riches and honour to all were to follow the re-establishment of 
 the true faith. Nor was this all. He had excused the timidity 
 and hesitation, which had been so conspicuous in his leadership, 
 on the ground that the moment was not ripe, the fateful hour 
 had not yet struck, and that to anticipate it rashly would 
 ruin all. In the meanwhile, he reasoned that the policy 
 dictated by prudence was to temporize as long as possible, 
 while perfecting his organization, and drilling and equipping the 
 native troops, to the use of which he had now been forced. 
 There is not the slightest doubt that in this policy he was right. 
 Tyrone had all the qualities of a born diplomatist. In that 
 direction lay his genius, and it was only when it came to actual 
 fighting in the field that his fundamental cowardice paralysed 
 him, and prevented him from carrying his own admirable pro- 
 
 * Tyrone to McCarthy More, Jan. 27th, 1601. 
 
 307 20*
 
 808 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 gramme to a successful issue. Like many others of his type, 
 both before and since, he mistook massacre for lighting and 
 pillage for the sign of victory. Never was this more painfully 
 apparent than during the autumn of 1601. 
 
 The Spaniards had come in response to earnest and persistent 
 prayers from the Irish leaders. They had been told that on 
 their arrival they would be at once joined by a powerful Irish 
 army perfectly trained and equipped. The Irish army was by 
 arrangement to bring with it four hundred chargers, for which 
 the Spaniards were to and actually did come provided with 
 four hundred saddles. There was no reason why any of these 
 preconcerted arrangements should have missed fire, for the 
 date and place of the Spanish landing had been known with 
 some degree of accuracy for many weeks before the actual 
 event. In every single respect, however, the Irish fell short 
 of their undertaking. 
 
 Undoubtedly Tyrone's most criminal failure was in neglecting 
 
 to join up with the Spaniards the moment the news of their 
 
 arrival reached him. At that time Mountjoy's forces, and 
 
 those of the newly-arrived Spaniards were about equal. Two 
 
 thousand more Spaniards were known to be following close on 
 
 the heels of the first detachment, and Tyrone himself had seven 
 
 thousand men whom he could put in the field within a few 
 
 hours. Nor were these a mere rabble of wood-kerne ; they were 
 
 a thoroughly well-trained and well-equipped force. Sir Ralph 
 
 Lane reckoned them to be no whit behind the English troops 
 
 in the matter of training and equipment. " But now," he 
 
 wrote to Essex as early as 1596, " the Irish soldiers are most 
 
 ready, well disciplined, and as good marksmen as Spain, France 
 
 or Flanders can show. All this owing to the Earl of Tyrone, 
 
 who, as he has done for three years past, infinitely belabours 
 
 them with training in all parts of Ulster."* The five years 
 
 which had elapsed since the writing of Lane's letter had still 
 
 further added to the training, discipline and equipment of 
 
 Tyrone's Irish army, which, by the end of 1601, was certainly 
 
 equal in all three respects to the other two armies at the moment 
 
 in Ireland. By the beginning of October, then, the combined 
 
 Spanish and Irish forces could have put 13,500 well-trained 
 
 and equipped men into the field against Mountjoy's 4,300, a 
 
 superiority in numbers which could hardly have failed to have 
 
 * Sir Ralph Lane to Essex, Oct. 23rd, 1596.
 
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 809 
 
 assured victory. In spite of this, Tyrone hesitated. Much 
 valuable time was, in the first instance, wasted in debating 
 whether he himself should go south or remain in Ulster. 
 Finally it was decided that he should go. With a fine display 
 of theatrical emotion, the O'Neil nominated his eldest son Hugh 
 tanist, at the same time expressing the pious hope that he 
 himself would find a higher rank in Heaven before the end of 
 the campaign. Noble and patriotic as this aspiration was, 
 its author was strangely slow, when the occasion came, to offer 
 any opportunity for its fulfilment. The idea of a pitched 
 battle seems to have been so inherently distasteful to him that 
 he was ready to grasp at any trivial excuse for postponing the 
 ordeal by combat, which he knew awaited him in the south. 
 
 The Spaniards, on their side, were not unnaturally at a loss 
 to account for the non-appearance of a man who for years 
 had been clamouring for their interference. Urgent and 
 repeated messages were sent from Kinsale to the dilatory Earl, 
 imploring his co-operation, and yet week after week passed 
 and he made no sign. The only possible explanation which 
 presents itself to the modern student of the situation is that, 
 now that the long-expected crisis had arrived, he shrank from 
 facing it. 
 
 In October he made a show of moving south, but succeeded 
 in getting no further than Louth and Meath, where, taking 
 advantage of the absence of the Deputy and his armed forces, 
 he wasted six valuable weeks in ravaging those defenceless 
 counties. There is no incident in Tyrone's career that more 
 clearly stamps the innate meanness of the man's soul than this 
 wanton and insensate act of destruction. Though the allies 
 who had come to his aid were calling to him with all their voice 
 to join them in striking the long-promised blow, and though the 
 opportunity for striking that blow was unique and never to be 
 repeated, he could not prevail upon himself to face serious 
 fighting while the safer and more congenial paths of devastation 
 lay open to him. Friend and foe alike, in Louth and Meath, 
 were sacrificed to the shallow desire to let his allies see that, 
 even though he was not at their side, he was still a power for 
 destruction. It was part of his nature to see no distinction 
 between brigandage and battle. To his parochial mind fed, 
 it must be owned, on the traditions of the country the destruc- 
 tion of the defenceless seemed to offer the cheapest, and, at
 
 S10 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 the same time, the most telling advertisement of military 
 supremacy. He hoped the Spaniards would be impressed. It 
 is not surprising that, far from being impressed, the Spaniards 
 viewed the proceedings with a noble contempt. Already they 
 were beginning to realize that they were dealing with a man 
 whose performances had no relation to his boasts. They were 
 to realize it still more painfully before they had seen the last 
 of Ireland. Even when he had completed his devastation of 
 Louth and Meath, he could not persuade himself to face the 
 inevitable. He actually went back once more to Dungannon, 
 and, in the inglorious security of his chief stronghold, wasted 
 more precious time, while Mount joy was steadily accumulating 
 reinforcements. Hugh Roe and O'Rourke had already, in 
 obedience to his orders, led their forces south, the former being 
 accompanied by two horses carrying locked hampers full of 
 Spanish money. Tyrone had arranged to meet him first at 
 Granard, and later on at Holy Cross in Tipperary. He failed 
 to keep either appointment, and in the end Hugh Roe, in 
 disgust, went on alone to Castlehaven, where he ultimately 
 joined up with the second contingent of Spaniards. It was the 
 end of November before Tyrone, shamed at last in some part 
 by the bitter reproaches of his allies, finally made up his mind 
 to face that which could no longer by any chicanery be put off. 
 To the last he showed more concern for the preservation of his 
 own landed interests in Ulster than for the freedom of Ireland, 
 or the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church. His eldest 
 son Hugh was left behind as his deputy. Con, the illegitimate, 
 was also left behind on account of bad health. He had received 
 a serious wound in the last Munster campaign, from the effects 
 of which he shortly afterwards died. O'Cahan was left in 
 charge of Coleraine, and Cormac O'Neil in charge of Newtown, 
 which Docwra had so far failed to recapture. The other Cormac 
 (McBaron), Tyrone at first took with him, but subsequently 
 sent him back to keep an eye on the administration of his son 
 Hugh, in whom he had no special confidence. Art McBaron 
 was left in charge of the Blackwater country, while Art's two 
 sons Henry and Brian watched Tyrone's interests in Clandeboye. 
 For the rest, the Fews which had been made over to Con 
 O'Neil when Tirlough McHenry joined Mountjoy was now 
 assigned to the care of the O'Hagpns. 
 
 It is a curious fact that when the most fateful Irish battle
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 311 
 
 of Elizabeth's reign was fought, a battle which, in the opinion 
 of high and low alike, was to decide the fate of Ireland for ever- 
 more, every chief and petty chief in Ulster managed to absent 
 himself, except Tyrone himself and Randall McSorley. The 
 latter marched south with the Earl at the head of 120 Scots, 
 which represented the full complement that he was able to 
 put in the field, and the sum total of Scots engaged. Even 
 Tyrone's bodyguard was now Irish. 
 
 Tyrone marched south with, no doubt, the very best of inten- 
 tions till West Meath was reached, but here the temptation to 
 once more pillage Sir Theobald Dillon's tenants proved too 
 strong, and much valuable time was wasted in this congenial 
 occupation.* Eventually, on December 21st, Kinsale was 
 reached, and Tyrone pitched his camp on the north bank of 
 the Owneboy River, in a well-chosen position, which threatened, 
 though it did not actually cut, Mountjoy's lines of communica- 
 tion with Cork. Mountjoy was now in a more or less critical 
 position, being sandwiched in between the Spanish and the 
 Irish armies. His strength, which had at one time reached 
 8,000 men, had been gradually reduced by continual sickness, 
 the men dying at the rate of from twelve to fifteen daily. At 
 the date of Tyrone's arrival on the scene he could with diffi- 
 culty muster 6,000 men, and of these many were incapacitated 
 by sickness and privations. On the other hand, the Spanish 
 and Irish combined were able to muster well over 13,000 men. 
 Don Juan D'Aquila, the Spanish Commander, who for three 
 months past had been chafing with impatience at the non- 
 appearance of his Irish allies, lost no time in getting into 
 communication with the newly-arrived Earl. It was arranged 
 between them that, on the night of the 23rd, the English camp 
 should be suddenly and simultaneously attacked from the south 
 by the Spaniards and from the north by the Irish. The plan was 
 strategically sound, and had it been kept secret ought, by all 
 the rules of warfare, to have succeeded. It was, however, 
 given away in the following curious manner by Brian McHugh 
 Oge McMahon, of Monaghan rebellion fame. Brian's son had 
 been page to Sir George Carew in England, and, on the strength 
 of this family tie, Brian sent over a boy to Captain Taaffe on 
 the night of the 22nd, asking him to procure for his special 
 consumption a bottle of whisky from Carew, who was now 
 
 * Four Musters.
 
 312 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Lord President of Munster. Taaffe succeeded in getting the 
 whisky, and in return for it was warned that Tyrone and Don 
 Juan meant attacking simultaneous^ on the following night.* 
 On the strength of this warning, Mountjoy's men stood to arms 
 all through the night of the 23rd, and just before daybreak 
 were rewarded by seeing the lights of Tyrone's advance scouts 
 approaching. Mountjoy left Sir George Carew with the bulk 
 of the forces to defend the camp against the threatened Spanish 
 attack from the south, and, with the Marshal (Wingfield), the 
 young Earl of Clanricard, Sir Henry Power and Sir Richard 
 Graham, rode out to meet the attack. Sir George Carew, both 
 in his letter to Cecil and in his " Pacata Hiberma," states that 
 Mountjoy had with him 1,200 foot and 400 horse. Mountjoy, 
 himself, however, in a letter to the Privy Council, which is 
 preserved in the Trevelyan Papers, distinctly states that he 
 had 2,000 foot and between 300 and 400 horse with him. As 
 a matter of fact, the number of foot that accompanied him is 
 immaterial, as they never came into action. 
 
 On the other side, Tyrone, according to Alonzo del Campo, 
 had 6,000 foot and 500 horse, f This Spaniard had, shortly 
 before the battle, landed with the second contingent of invaders 
 at Castlehaven, and had managed to join Tyrone's force with 
 200 of his own men. On seeing the great numerical inferiority 
 of Mountjoy's force, del Campo urged Tyrone to an immediate 
 attack, but the Earl pleaded that his force was not in proper 
 formation, and, instead of attacking, actually withdrew two 
 miles, J till he had placed a boggy ford between his army and 
 the Deputy. Here he turned and faced about. His horse were 
 on his left, his foot in the centre, and del Campo with his 200 
 Spaniards on the right. 
 
 The battle which followed is probably the most remarkable 
 in history. It was the first time that Tyrone, or in all prob- 
 ability any of those under him, had ever faced battle in the 
 open plain, and the result was not such as to encourage a repe- 
 tition of the experiment. 
 
 After some musket-shots had been exchanged across the bog, 
 by one of which Sir Richard Graham was killed, Wingfield 
 the Marshal, with half his horse, made a detour to the right 
 and floundered through the edge of the bog, close to where 
 Tyrone's .horse were drawn up on the left of his line. Having 
 * " Pacata Hibernia." f Fynes Moryson. | Trevelyan Papers,
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 118 
 
 reached firm ground (which he should never have been allowed 
 to do), Wingfield then charged the Irish horse, but without 
 any success, for these stood firm ; upon seeing which, he wheeled 
 his men about and waited till the balance of his horse had 
 crossed the bog and joined him. The combined party then 
 renewed the charge, and this time the Irish did not await it, 
 but turned tail and galloped off through the thick of their own 
 infantry.* An absolute panic ensued. The Irish foot threw 
 away their arms and ran to any cover that offered, pursued 
 by the English horse. The two hundred Spaniards on the right 
 of the line to their infinite credit did not join in the general 
 stampede. They retired to an adjoining hill, where they gallantly 
 defended themselves till all were killed except del Campo 
 and thirty-seven others, who were taken prisoners, f "A 
 Journal of Affairs at Kinsale," dated January 9th, 1602,J 
 says of this incident : " The Irish ran away. The Spaniards, 
 like amazed men, cursing the day that ever they came to 
 Ireland, themselves made a stand. Many of them were killed, 
 the rest holding themselves to mercy. The pursuit continued 
 for one and a half miles, to the utter shame of the Irish rebels, 
 until the horse were out of breath in running and the horsemen 
 wearied with killing." 
 
 In this most astonishing affair all accounts agree in placing 
 the number of killed in the neighbourhood of twelve hundred, 
 irrespective of the many who escaped with bad wounds from 
 which they subsequently died. Two thousand muskets were 
 also gathered up, which had been thrown away by the fleeing 
 infantry. On the English side, Sir Richard Graham was the 
 only man killed. 
 
 In defence of the otherwise inexcusable flight of the Irish foot, 
 it must be urged that they were first of all thrown into confusion 
 by the disgraceful conduct of their own horsemen, among whom 
 was included every chief and sept leader. It is eloquent of 
 the rapidity with which all the leaders retired from the field 
 that the only name of note which figures in the list of killed is 
 that of Tirlough O'Hagan. 
 
 Hugh Roe was not present on the occasion of the battle|| 
 if such it can be called. He pleaded having lost his way in a 
 
 * Sir Henry l'u\v, i !,. C.-.-il. !>.. 'JTth, 1001. 
 
 t Fynes Moryson. I Cal. St.it, l' i( |>ers. Fynes Morysou. 
 
 i! Sir Francis Stafford to Cecil, Jan. 14th, 1002.
 
 314 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 fog, but this excuse may be accepted with reservation, for the 
 O'Donnell had little more liking for a fight in the open than 
 had his father-in-law.* The most prominent figures on the 
 English side during the affair were the Marshal and the Earl 
 of Clanricard. The latter was very forward in the pursuit, 
 and was subsequently knighted on the field by the Deputy, f 
 
 The State Papers provide no explanation of the non-co-opera- 
 tion of Don Juan from the south. A reasonable assumption 
 would appear to be that the Spanish commander was waiting 
 for Tyrone to attack as agreed. Tyrone's heart failed him at 
 the last moment, and he did not attack, but, on the contrary, 
 retired two miles to a spot which was completely out of sight 
 and hearing of the Spanish commander, who waited in vain 
 for the signal which had been agreed upon. 
 
 * The Four Masters who were Donegal men represent their chief as not 
 only being present, but as delivering an impassioned address to the fleeing Irish, 
 in which he besought them to be worthy of the deeds of their heroic: ancestors, 
 but all historians agree that he was nowhere near the scene of the fight 
 
 f " Pacata Hibernia."
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 Tyrone's return to Ulster Trying experiences of the defeated army They 
 are murdered in numbers by the peasants Hugh Roe's prophecy fulfilled 
 He sails for Spain Henry Oge's scornful reproof of Tyrone Don Juan 
 D'Aquila's appeal to Mountjoy The return of the Spaniards to Spain 
 Sir James McDonnell breaks loose from Dunluce and captures the Castle 
 Tyrone's diplomacy Sir James restores the Castle to Randall McSorley 
 and marries Tyrone's daughter Arrival on the scene of Angus His indig- 
 nation with his son He hangs some of his men. 
 
 A CHRONICLE of Ulster events has no legitimate concern 
 with affairs in the south, except in so far as such affairs 
 may have a bearing on the fortunes of the Ulster chiefs. We 
 may therefore deal very briefly with the final stages of the 
 Spanish invasion. 
 
 From the moment of his defeat, Tyrone made hot haste to 
 get back to the north, bitterly regretting, no doubt, that he had 
 ever left it. He himself was carried in a litter, which travelled 
 with remarkable speed, and we may be quite sure from what 
 we know of his character and of the customs of the times that 
 during his flight he wasted never a thought on the safety of the 
 rank and file of his defeated army. That rank and file fared 
 very badly indeed. They were drowned in crossing flooded 
 rivers, they were murdered by the country people. Their 
 casualties in the return to Ulster were greater even than those 
 sustained in the defeat itself.* We are furnished with full 
 particulars of this retreat from the mouth of one Shane Sheale, 
 who acted as Tyrone's trumpeter throughout the expedition, 
 but who afterwards deserted to Sir Francis Stafford at Newry. 
 Shane Sheale favours us with a graphic description of how 
 " they that did kiss them in their going forward, did both strip 
 them and shoot bullets at them in their return, and for their 
 arms did drown them and tread them down in every bog and 
 soft place under their feet."f The Four Masters bear out this 
 
 * Sir Francis Stafford to Cecil, Jan. 14th, KJ02. t 
 
 315
 
 316 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 statement of Shane's, and also draw attention to the fact that 
 Hugh Roe had warned Tyrone that it would be so. " The 
 surmise of the Prince O'Donnell," they write, " was verified, 
 for their former friends and confederates rose up and were 
 attacking and shooting them on every narrow road through 
 which they passed." The Prince O'Donnell, however, had no 
 intention of being one of the victims, for, on the Sunday after 
 the defeat, he sailed from Castlehaven for Spain, where he died 
 a year later at Valladolid. 
 
 The sacred person of the O'Neil safely surmounted all these 
 dangers. On January 7th he reached O'Reilly in Cavan ; 
 on the 8th he was in Monaghan, and on the 9th he rested at 
 the house of his son-in-law, Henry Oge, at Kinard.* Tyrone 
 bitterly reproached the other with having persuaded him 
 against his own inclinations to go to Munster. To this Henry 
 Oge very pointedly replied : " O'Neil, though I persuaded you 
 to go the journey, I would not have had you run away, but 
 to have stayed and tried your strength." 
 
 The last stages of Don Juan D'Aquila's ill-fated expedition 
 may now be briefly disposed of. After the painful collapse of 
 his Irish allies, there was clearly nothing for the Spaniard to 
 do but to return to his own country with all the speed possible, 
 and with as little loss of dignity as the circumstances permitted 
 of. Accordingly, on the last day of December he wrote Mount- 
 joy the following letter : " Having found the Deputy although 
 a sharp and powerful opponent yet an honourable enemy, and 
 the Irish not only weak and barbarous, but (as he feared) 
 perfidious friends, he was so far in his affection reconciled to 
 the one and distated with the other as did invite him to make an 
 overture of such composition as might be safe and profitable for 
 the State of England, with less prejudice to the King of Spain, 
 by delivering into the Deputy's power the town of Kinsale, 
 with all other places' in Ireland held by the Spaniards, so as 
 they might depend upon honourable terms fitting such men 
 of war as are not by necessity enforced to receive conditions, 
 but willingly induced for just respects to disengage themselves, 
 and to relinquish a people by whom their King and master had 
 been so notoriously abused, if not betray ed."| 
 
 In reply to this pompous effusion Mountjoy, in the first 
 
 * Sir F. Stafford to Cecil, Jan, 14th, 1602. 
 t " Pacata Hibemia."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER SIT 
 
 instance, sent Sir William Godolphin to open negotiations on 
 the basis of security of life and property to the Spaniards, in 
 consideration of their immediate evacuation of Kinsale. To 
 this Don Juan agreed, undertaking that he and all his men would 
 set sail for Spain in their own ships on the very first occasion 
 on which favourable winds offered. Unfortunately, the winds 
 remained consistently unfavourable till the 9th day of March, 
 on which date the wind shifted to the north-east, and Don 
 Juan and his disbanded army set sail for their native land. 
 On the following day Mountjoy returned north. 
 
 With the battle of Kinsale, Tyrone's long spun-out rebellion 
 may be said to have breathed its last. From that time on the 
 Earl became a hunted man, only avoiding capture by hiding 
 in inaccessible fastnesses, and by shifting continually from one 
 refuge to another. There is little profit in the contemplation 
 of a fallen idol, and still less in the pursuit of a hunted fugitive. 
 Whether the quarry be a fox or a stag or a rebel Earl, whether 
 he be a persecuted refugee or an execrable murderer, the 
 sympathies of those who look on must ever be, in great part, 
 with the hunted. 
 
 In this, then, the last Act of that curious comedy, known as 
 Tyrone's rebellion, there will be little advantage or even interest 
 in dwelling unduly on a contest in which the sides are no longer 
 equal. One hope only remained to Tyrone, and that was a 
 forlorn one. If he could regain the goodwill of the Scots, he 
 might still be able to put an army in the field that would hold 
 his pursuers at bay till the death of the Queen now reason- 
 ably to be expected at any moment opened a new political 
 era in the history of the island. Tyrone angled tor this overseas 
 help with all his customary diplomatic skill, taking every 
 advantage of the strange modifications in the McDonnell 
 position in Ulster, which had developed since he started for 
 the south. These were briefly as follows : Randall McSorley, 
 when he marched south with Tyrone, had left Sir James 
 McDonnell a prisoner in Dunluce Castle, and his younger 
 brother Ness in charge of the Glynns. Ness, in spite of his 
 inexperience, seems to have discharged his trust with credit 
 to his family, but in the Route district Randall's dispositions 
 proved less fortunate, for he had no sooner turned his back 
 on Dunluce than his prisoner managed not only to break loose 
 from confinement, but, with the aid of some of the warders, to
 
 318 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 get the Castle into his own hands. Unmindful of the fact, oi 1 
 perhaps too mindful of the fact, that he had been taken prisoner 
 by Randall in the very act of offering his services to the rebel 
 Earl, Sir James, in a sudden access of loyalty, now announced 
 that he was holding Dunluce Castle for the Queen. To this 
 announcement, no doubt mainly inspired by the news of the 
 Kinsale defeat, Randall had no effective retort to offer. Dun- 
 luce was a place of almost impregnable strength, and to have 
 attempted its recapture with the draggled remnant that had 
 escaped the carnage of Kinsale would have been a hopeless 
 undertaking. At the same time, its recovery was a matter of 
 vital importance to him. In the difficulties arising out of this 
 situation, Tyrone's diplomatic genius found its opportunity. 
 Using to the full his remarkable powers of persuasion, he was 
 able to convince Sir James that it was to his interest to give 
 up the Castle, and to take in exchange one of his own innu- 
 merable daughters, who was produced for the occasion, and who 
 may, for all we know, have been as fair as the incomparable 
 Sara whom he had married to Magennis. In any event, Sir 
 James, undeterred by the fact that he already had a wife in 
 Scotland, agreed to the exchange, and the compact was duly 
 ratified. 
 
 By this crafty move Tyrone secured at one stroke the valuable 
 gratitude of Randall, and a new son-in-law, who, in the event 
 of Angus' s death, would have been chief of the Island 
 McDonnells, and in a position to bring to his aid a powerful 
 Scotch army. 
 
 At the moment of triumph, however, a disturbing factor sud- 
 denly made its appearance on the scene in the shape of Angus 
 himself, who, old as he was, was by no means disposed to be 
 left out of any arrangements affecting the clan of which he 
 was still chief. Angus had been highly interested at the news 
 of his eldest son's capture of the much-desired Dunluce Castle, 
 and, brushing aside the memory of their recent differences, he 
 sent over congratulatory messages backed up by the proposal 
 that he himself should shortly follow with five hundred Scots 
 to consolidate the newly-acquired position. To this friendly 
 offer James made no response, being at the moment too fully 
 occupied with the details of his recent transfer of property. 
 Angus, however, was not to be discouraged, and as soon as 
 his preparations were complete, he set sail with his five hundred
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 81$ 
 
 men, and in due course arrived at Dunluce, only to find the 
 Castle once more in the possession of Randall and his son the 
 complacent dupe of the scheming Earl. Angus' s rage was 
 only equalled by his contemptuous disgust for his son's weak- 
 ness. Feeling the need of a safety-valve for his feelings, he 
 hanged several of Sir James's men,* after which he was able 
 to sit down in a more equable frame of mind and discuss the 
 situation with his son. The interview started very stormily, 
 but we are told that " after a few cups " there was a complete 
 reconciliation between father and son, and Angus set sail for 
 Scotland, to the pronounced relief of the survivors among Sir 
 James's men. 
 
 Tyrone's diplomacy did not in the end produce the armed 
 auxiliaries that he had looked for, but it was not altogether 
 barren of beneficial results to himself. Sir James was never 
 of any use to him. Shortly after his marriage he crossed the 
 Bann with his new bride, stayed for a time with O'Cahan, 
 another of Tyrone's son-in-laws, and then made his way back 
 to Scotland, whether with or without his bride we do not 
 know ; but the probability is that he left her with her sister. 
 If so, Tyrone shortly afterwards had two of his married 
 daughters back on his hands, for O'Cahan grew tired of his 
 own wife in 1607, and sent her back to her father, f From 
 Randall, however, Tyrone secured a return for his good offices, 
 which, though it did not take the form of auxiliary Scots, was 
 later on of inestimable value to him in his most urgent needs, 
 as will presently be seen. 
 
 * Chichester to Cecil, June 8th, 1604. 
 
 t Meehan's " Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell." Se also Earl of Tyrone's 
 Articles : Cal. State Papers : James, 502.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 Mountjoy pursues the defeated Earl into Ulster He builds a fort at Charle- 
 mount He destroys the Tullahogue stone Tyrone in Glenconkein 
 Randall McSorley shows gratitude for the restoration of Dunluce Docwra 
 and Chichester co-operate with the Deputy Mountjoy fort Capture of 
 Castle Toome Mountjoy's expedition into Monaghan Death of Sir John 
 Berkeley and Captain Willis Mountjoy's food difficulties Docwra's 
 expedition to Dungiven Death of Hugh Boy McDavitt Docwra's high 
 opinion of him Tyrone takes refuge with O'Rourke Rumours of a fresh 
 Spanish landing Mountjoy hurries south Seizure of Cormac McBaron's 
 cattle Capture of Augher Castle Connor Roe and Cuconnaught Maguire 
 The Ulster garrisons Mountjoy transports the Dungannon natives into 
 Armagh Henry and Con McShane The lands allotted to them. 
 
 IT was by no means a part of Mountjoy's policy that the 
 moral effect of the Kinsale victory should be allowed to 
 wane through undue inactivity on his part. In June he was once 
 more in Ulster, hot on the trail of the discredited Earl. His 
 army had preceded him to Newry, which he himself reached on 
 the 10th. On the 14th he moved on to Armagh, and the 
 following day found him once more at the Blackwater. No 
 opposition was met with, and a leisured examination of the 
 whole position persuaded Mountjoy that the old Blackwater 
 fort was by no means at the best or most convenient spot. He 
 discovered a ford five miles to the east, in Tirlough Braselagh's 
 country, which was easier of access from Armagh, and which 
 had the further advantage of being only six miles from Dun- 
 gannon. Here he set to work to construct^ bridge and a new 
 fort, which he named Charlemount, and which, when com- 
 pleted, was left in charge of Captain Toby Caul field. During 
 the preliminary survey ^of_the^selected ; ground the flames of 
 Tyrone's dwelling-house at Dungannon could be plainly seen 
 reddening the sky to the north-west,* and on the third day 
 Sir Richard Moryson was sent on with his regiment to take 
 
 * Tyrone's Castle had been burned by his own hand in a panic on the occasion 
 of Norris's advance to the Blackwater in 1595. At the date of Mountjoy'* 
 invasion, Tyrone was living in a wooden house thatched with rushes. See Cal. 
 State Papers, March, 1602. 
 
 J20
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 821 
 
 possession. Mountjoy, with the rest'of the army, followed a 
 few days later. 
 
 One of Mountjoy's first acts after arriving at Dungannon was 
 to make a journey to Tullahogue, where, with the idea of help- 
 ing the native mind to a realization of the broken power of the 
 O'Neil, he completely demolished the historic Leac-na-Righ, 
 or coronation stone, which for centuries had invested its chosen 
 occupant with a semi-divine status. This iconoclastic act 
 having been carried out with fitting advertisement and cere- 
 monial,* Mountjoy returned to Dungannon, and, by way of 
 double-marking the contrast between the old order and the 
 new, gave the natives an educational display of English 
 authority by dispensing justice to all comers, high and low 
 alike, for several days. 
 
 The deposed Prince of Ulster was all this time in hiding in 
 the wooded wilds of Glenconkein, whither he had withdrawn 
 with a small but devoted following, and whither Mountjoy's 
 food resources did not at the moment permit of his penetrating. 
 His present policy was rather to starve the Earl out, and this 
 there is little doubt that he would soon have succeeded in 
 doing but for the intervention of the grateful Randall McSorley, 
 to whom Tyrone sent his wife with a reminder of his late 
 services and with an appeal for help. One can hardly doubt 
 that Randall's ready response was dictated mainly by gratitude 
 for Tyrone's recent friendly mediation in the matter of Dunluce 
 Castle, for no Ulsterman could any longer deceive himself as 
 to the hopeless state of the Earl's fortunes, both present and 
 future. Randall must have seen this as clearly as anyone, 
 but it did not influence his conduct towards his late benefactor, 
 and during the entire period of Tyrone's concealment in Glen- 
 conkein he sent him periodical consignments of wine, whisky, 
 meal and salt, f 
 
 In the meanwhile, the question of Mountjoy's own food 
 supplies were causing him no little concern. To keep his forces 
 supplied with the necessaries of life, foraging parties were sent 
 out in all directions, even as far as Lough Erne, with orders to 
 bring in everything edible which could be found. The keeping 
 together of his force at this time was essential to the consum- 
 
 * The Tullahogue stone stood in the centre of a raised encampment surrounded 
 by the remains of a moat and in the shadow of a ruin which had once been the 
 ancestral home of the O'Hajjans. 
 
 t Sir Thomas Phillips to Cecil, July 27th, 1002. 
 
 21
 
 322 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 mation of his schemes, for several projects of the first importance 
 still remained to be carried through. In furtherance of these, 
 or of some of them, Docwra, acting under orders from head- 
 quarters, came over from Omagh on July 14th for a consulta- 
 tion with the Lord Deputy, while Chichester at the same time 
 crossed Lough Neagh with his lately recovered flotilla of boats 
 and arrived at Dungannon the day after the Derry Governor. 
 As soon as the three leaders were assembled, an expedition was 
 organized to the end of Lough Nea ?h, where, at the junction of 
 the Blackwater and the Lough, the Deputy had resolved to 
 erect a new fort to which the appropriate name of Mount joy 
 was to be given. Both this fort, which when completed was 
 capable of holding over one thousand men, and Charlemount 
 were destined to play a very prominent part in the rebellion of 
 1641. Chichester was nominated Governor of Mount joy, and 
 Captain Francis Roe was left to supervise the building and to 
 take charge when completed. From the mouth of the Black- 
 water Mount joy nioved along the western shore of the Lough 
 as far as the exit of the Bann, where he occupied and garrisoned 
 Castle Toome, leaving Sir Thomas Phillips in charge. The occu- 
 pation of this latter fort was of the very first importance, for 
 it completely commanded the only passage into Tyrone across 
 the Bann from Clandeboye and the Glynns. 
 
 The effect of these admirable dispositions of Mount joy was 
 that, with the Blackwater, Charlemount, Mount joy and Castle 
 Toome in his hands, he formed an impassable barrier right 
 across Tyrone's country ; for the passage of Lough Neagh itself 
 was only practicable for the native craft in the very calmest 
 weather, 
 
 On returning to Dungannon, Mountjoy arranged with his 
 two subordinate commanders a concerted movement which 
 was to take effect on August 10th. On that date it was arranged 
 that the three detachments were to close in simultaneously on 
 Tyrone, Docwra working up from Omagh via Dungiven, 
 Chichester moving west from the Mountjoy fort, and the Deputy 
 himself pressing north from Dungannon through Killeteagh. 
 These arrangements completed, the parties separated, after 
 spending ten eventful days together at Dungannon. Docwra 
 returned to Derry, while Mountjoy led a flying column to 
 Lough Erne, where he captured and ransacked several of 
 Tyrone's island strongholds.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 328 
 
 From Lough Erne Mountjoy moved east into County 
 Monaghan, where, in conformity with his scheme of wasting 
 the enemy's country, he destroyed all the crops in Dartrey 
 (the country of Brian McHugh Oge, the principal McMahon 
 rebel), and so returned, fairly satisfied, to Dungannon. That 
 these operations were not unattended with danger is made 
 clear by the fact that both Sir John Berkeley, the sergeant- 
 major to the army, and the scarcely less famous Captain Willis 
 were killed during the tour.* 
 
 The combined advance into Glenconkein, which had been 
 arranged for August 10th, did not take place, as Mountjoy's 
 devastating policy now began to react on himself, and it was 
 found impossible to provision the troops. The army victuallers 
 added to his difficulties in this direction by selling the stores 
 which were destined for the army to the starving natives, who 
 were willing to offer any price for them.f Gaunt famine, in 
 fact, was beginning to fix its hold on the greater part of east 
 Ulster, and Mountjoy, in his letters to England, dwells con- 
 stantly and painfully on the extreme privations that he and his 
 army were enduring, as the result of his zeal in the Queen's in- 
 terest. In the end Docwra was the only one of the three to carry 
 out the contemplated movement, Mountjoy's message counter- 
 manding the arrangements having, by some mischance, failed 
 to reach him. The food difficulties which so embarrassed his 
 colleagues did not touch Docwra, who had been a most half- 
 hearted apostle of the general policy of devastation, and whose 
 district was, in consequence, still sufficiently productive to raise 
 it clear above all question of food-shortage. Taking with him 
 Neil Garv, young Cahir O'Dogherty and Hugh Boy, he started 
 out from Omagh on the date agreed upon, and got as far as 
 Dungiven Castle, which he occupied, and from there made 
 a successful raid into the outskirts of Glenconkein, driving in 
 one hundred and sixty of Tyrone's cattle. Satisfied with these 
 results, and realizing by this time that Mountjoy and Chichcster 
 were not collaborating, he deemed it advisable to return to 
 Omagh. Neil Garv and Cahir O'Dogherty went with him, 
 but Hugh Boy remained behind and followed on the day 
 after. On the road, to Docwra's very great grief, this young 
 man was waylaid and murdered. There is no reason to suppose 
 that the murder was in any way political. " He was set upon 
 
 * Fyucs Moryson. t Ibid. 
 
 21*
 
 824 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 and slain," Docwra tells us, " by a party of loose fellows that 
 fell upon him by chance. A man whom I found faithful and 
 honest, let envy and ignorance say what they will to the 
 contrary."* Hugh Boy left two brothers, of whom the elder, 
 Phelim Reagh, subsequently played a very prominent part 
 in O'Dogherty's rebellion of 1608. 
 
 Docwra's seizure of cattle in Glenconkein was not only a 
 serious blow to Tyrone's commissariat, but it also made it 
 painfully clear to him that Glenconkein was no longer the 
 inaccessible retreat that it had always been reckoned. The 
 three English commanders were too near him on every side to 
 be pleasant, and he determined to slip out of their clutches 
 while he could. He accordingly undertook one of those long 
 forced rides for which he was famous. Turning his back on 
 Glenconkein, he rode south till he reached Lough Erne, which 
 he crossed into O'Rourke's country. Here he was joined by 
 Cormac McBaron, Brian McArt and Brian McHugh Oge, f all 
 three of whom were no less glad than Tyrone to put Lough 
 Erne between them and the energetic Deputy. O'Rourke was 
 at the time the only rebel chief still remaining on his own 
 ground (Leitrim). The strength of his position lay in the long 
 protective barrier formed by the many ramifications of Lough 
 Erne, which, except at one or two recognized spots, was reckoned 
 to be impassable for anything in the nature of an army. Luck 
 on this occasion favoured the Earl, for any question of imme- 
 diate pursuit was put out of court by a rumour which now 
 reached Ulster that the Spaniards had once more effected a 
 landing at Berehaven. Such rumours, even though unfounded, 
 were not to be ignored, and on September 9th Mount joy hurried 
 away south to investigate the extent of this new danger. The 
 rumour proved to be without any foundation, but other matters 
 engaged the Deputy's attention, and it was winter before he 
 found himself once more in the north. His first objective was 
 Tyrone's new retreat. Early in December, undeterred by the 
 inclemency of the season, he invaded O'Rourke's country. 
 The expedition was not unproductive of results, for on the 14th 
 O'Connor Sligo and Rory O'Donnell (Hugh Roe's younger 
 brother) came in and made submission. O'Rourke himself 
 and Cuconnaught Maguire (a younger brother of Hugh Maguire) 
 still remained " out," and the Earl, on the first news of Mount- 
 * Docwra Narration. t Deputy to Cecil, Oct. 12th, 1602.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 825 
 
 joy's approach, had once more put Lough Erne between himself 
 and the Deputy, and had scurried back to Glenconkein, where 
 he remained till his final submission. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Docwra, ever since his return from the 
 Dimgiven expedition, had made Omagh his head-quarters, 
 as being more centrally situated than Derry. While lying 
 there, news was brought to him that there was a happy 
 opportunity for putting himself in possession of some of Cormac 
 McBaron's cattle, which were most obligingly grazing in the 
 vicinity. Following the information given, he at once set out 
 on the welcome quest for meat, but unfortunately the cattle 
 proved to be further afield than was anticipated. A consider- 
 able distance had to be covered, and while driving their prey 
 home Docwra's party was repeatedly attacked from the thick 
 woods on either side. The cattle, four hundred in number, 
 were safely brought to Omagh, but Docwra lost twenty-five 
 men in the enterprise. Cahir O'Dogherty, who was only 
 fifteen years old at the time, is specially mentioned as having 
 behaved very well during the fighting, and both he and Neil 
 Garv were knighted by the Deputy two days later for the 
 worthy part they had played. 
 
 Moving out from Omagh shortly afterwards, Docwra met 
 Mountjoy and Chichester by appointment eight miles west of 
 Dungannon, and from there the three leaders, encouraged by 
 the successful seizure of Cormac McBaron's cattle, determined 
 to complete the subjugation of that bad subject by raiding his 
 Castle at Augher. The Castle, which was found to be unoccu- 
 pied, was a pretentious place, sufficiently strongly moated to be 
 described as an island. Two brass sakers crowned the battle- 
 ments, and the whole place was of commanding strength and 
 of very considerable size, as may be judged from the fact that 
 it was decided to leave Captain Hansard there with no fewer 
 than four hundred men.* 
 
 In place of attempting, in the depths of winter and with pro- 
 visions at a very low ebb, to pursue Tyrone into the wild and 
 thickly-wooded region of Glenconkein, Mountjoy deemed it more 
 profitable to bend his energies to the question of political 
 reform. He began by offering a free pardon to Cuconnaught 
 Maguire if he would agree to divide up Fermanagh between 
 himself and Connor Roe Maguire, leaving Enniskillen to the 
 
 * Docwra Narration.
 
 326 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 Queen.* Cuconnaught was sufficiently ill-advised to refuse an 
 offer which all things considered was surprisingly generous ; 
 whereupon Mount joy erased his name from the list of recon- 
 cilables, and established the faithful Connor Roe in the tem- 
 porary lordship over, not only the whole of Fermanagh, but 
 the whole of Monaghan as well, with the exception of Farney. 
 In token of his exalted command, Connor Roe was now estab- 
 lished in Brian McHugh Oge's chief house, which stood on 
 the border between the two counties. A garrison of seven 
 hundred men was left at Monaghan to lend its support, if 
 necessary, to his extended rule, and for the time being the 
 fortunes of Connor Roe Maguire were decidedly in the 
 ascendant. | The other Government garrisons in Ulster 
 were returned in November of this year (1602) as follows : 
 Newry, 250; Mount Norris, 350; Armagh, 250; Blackwater, 
 250; Charlemount, 250; Dungannon, 170 ; Mount joy, 1,200; 
 Carrickfergus and district, 1,000, and Lough Foyle, 1,800. 
 
 In spite of his demolition of the Tullahogue stone, it was 
 no part of Mountjoy's policy to obliterate the line of Nial of 
 the Nine Hostages. What he chiefly aimed at was to put an 
 end to the noxious apotheosis which the stone and the 
 " brutish ceremonies " surrounding it conferred. Henry and 
 Con McShane were once more at large, and these two unfortu- 
 nate brothers he now established in the lordship of the country 
 immediately north and south of the Blackwater. The country 
 north of the river had been wasted, but not so on the south 
 side, and Mount joy, out of pity for the wretched state of the 
 natives in Tyrone proper, moved as many of them as he could 
 across the water into County Armagh. The famine, however, 
 had already taken its toll of victims. According to the 
 O'Hagans, three thousand died during the year 1602, but this 
 figure, in common with most of the statistical returns of the 
 day from Ireland, may be safely brushed aside as an absurd 
 
 * Fynes Moryson. 
 
 f Cuconnaught afterwards agreed to divide the county with Connor Roe, 
 but the arrangement was never an amicable one, and the two fought continually 
 till Cuconnaught fled the country with Tyrone. After that Connor Roe was 
 apportioned three out of the seven baronies of Fermanagh, his younger brother 
 Brian succeeding to the four baronies vacated by Cuconnaught. Later 
 on, however, Connor Roe relinquished two of his baronies in consideration 
 of an annual grant of 200 a year, and 50 a year to his son after his death. He 
 retained the barony of Magherasteffana. See Chichester to the Lords, Sept. 12th, 
 1606 ; also Carew MSS., 1611-91, and Cal. State Papers : James, 1608-97. 
 $ Fynes Moryson. Ibid.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 827 
 
 exaggeration. None the less, the mortality was undoubtedly 
 high. Another six months, however, had to elapse before it 
 was at its worst. 
 
 The two sons of Shane, with then- energies atrophied by 
 long imprisonment, quickly proved that they were quite 
 incapable of exercising any authority over the district allotted 
 to them, and they were both called upon to abdicate in favour 
 of Henry McShane's eldest son, known as Sir Henry Oge. For 
 the time being accommodation for both Shane's sons was found 
 in Fermanagh, but in the Plantation shuffle of 1610 Henry 
 McShane was finally allotted two thousand acres in Orior, 
 Co. Armagh, and Con one thousand acres in Coole and Tir- 
 kennedy, Co. Fermanagh.* 
 
 * See Pynnar's Survey, 1618.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 The Queen's offer of pardon to Tyrone Death of Queen Elizabeth Dispatch 
 of Garrett Moore and Sir William Godolphin to Tullahogue They return 
 with Tyrone to Mellifont His submission They journey up to Dublin- 
 Tyrone's second submission His grief at the news of Elizabeth's death 
 Tyrone is restored to his old lands Desolation of eastern Ulster Horrible 
 incidents of the famine Limited scope of the famine Population census 
 in 1609 Mountjoy appointed Lord-Lieutenant He sails for England with 
 Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell Tyrone pelted with mud by the Welsh 
 women Rory O'Donnell created Earl of Tyrconnell Rivalry of Neil 
 Garv and Rory O'Donnell for the chiefry of Donegal Docwra's epitome 
 of Neil Gary's record Neil Garv has himself proclaimed the O'Donnell 
 He is arrested and placed on parole He breaks his parole and so vitiates 
 his chances of the succession Mountjoy's unaccountable bias in favour of 
 Tyrone Tyrone's hatred and jealousy of Neil Garv Tirlough McArt O'Neil 
 His popularity Neil Garv is granted the Finn valley His discontent 
 His complicity in O'Dogherty's rebellion Tirlough McArt is granted New- 
 town and Strabane He is subsequently removed to Dungannon 
 O'Dogherty and Inch Island Mountjoy's questionable action The King 
 espouses O'Dogherty's cause His commands disregarded O'Cahan and 
 the independence of Coleraine Docwra's advocacy of his cause Mount- 
 joy's unconquerable bias Docwra's disgrace He sells his interests in 
 Derry to Paulet. 
 
 BY the end of the winter of 1602 to 1603 the Earl of 
 Tyrone, Cuconnaught Maguire and O'Rourke were the 
 only three chiefs in the north who still remained proclaimed 
 and unrepentant rebels. These three Mountjoy determined 
 to leave alone for the winter and to pursue into their last 
 refuges upon the approach of spring. This last step, however, 
 became unnecessary, owing to the unexpected turn which 
 events took in the early spring of 1603. On February 6th the 
 Queen wrote to Mountjoy commanding him to send for Tyrone 
 and offer him life and liberty. This was not, as might be sup- 
 posed, a spontaneous act of generosity on the part of Elizabeth, 
 prompted by the knowledge that she was near her end. It was 
 a belated response to repeated suggestions in that direction 
 thrown out by Mountjoy himself, who had been specifically 
 forbidden to grant the rebel any pardon on his own responsibility. 
 " Tyrone doth continually importune me to be received to 
 mercy," he had written to Cecil in June of the previous year. 
 
 328
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 829 
 
 At that time, however, Elizabeth had very serious doubts as 
 to the honesty of the Earl's professions. A variety of chance 
 disclosures had for some years past come to her knowledge, 
 and had persuaded the Queen that Tyrone was not, and never 
 could be, true ; and the event proved how very right she was. 
 In this belief she had the support of Cecil. In reply to William 
 Warren's ardent advocacy of Tyrone's sincerity of purpose, 
 Cecil had written in 1599 : " I can affirm upon my faith to 
 Almighty God that, in Sir John Norris's time, both himself 
 and myself did especially labour to have had him [Tyrone] 
 received into Her Majesty's mercy upon any reasonable con- 
 ditions ; to which she also was inclinable. But that by one 
 means or another, still the governors and others discovered 
 palpable perfidious dealing in him, even against the most 
 merciful and most gracious Prince that the earth do carry."* In 
 harbouring her suspicions, Elizabeth's remarkable sagacity, as 
 events proved, was not at fault. She had properly gauged the 
 undependable nature of the man she had to deal with, but when 
 sickness took hold of her, and the end loomed in sight, her 
 mood softened. She wrote, as above described, authorizing 
 her Deputy to receive the rebel to mercy. Ten days later she 
 followed this up with another letter, in which Mountjoy was 
 told to add the offer of pardon to that of life and liberty 
 the word " pardon," in this sense, bearing the construction of 
 a promise of restitution, in all respects, to the status in quo ante. 
 By the same messenger, Cecil himself wrote to the Deputy, 
 further explaining the Queen's mood, and suggesting that, in 
 the bestowal of the pardon, Tyrone should be degraded from 
 the rank of Earl to that of Baron of Dungannon, as a sign 
 of the Queen's disapproval of his past conduct. Acting on 
 these instructions, Mountjoy, who at the time was staying with 
 Sir Edward Moore at Mellifont Abbey, sent Garrett Moore and 
 Sir William Godolphin on an embassy to Tyrone with the 
 Queen's offer. This was on March 25th. The Queen, as a 
 matter of fact, had died the previous day, but Mountjoy did 
 not hear of this calamity till the night of the 27th. f The 
 moment he learnt the news, he dispatched a messenger post- 
 haste after Godolphin, urging him to conclude Tyrone's 
 matter with all possible speed. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the commissioners had arrived at Charle- 
 
 * Cecil to William Warren, Nov. 6th, 1598. f l'>"es Moryaon.
 
 330 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 mount, and from there Garrett Moore went on to Tullahogue, 
 where he had a private interview with Tyrone, as a result of 
 which Henry O'Hagan was sent to Godolphin with the Earl's 
 formal acceptance of the Queen's gracious pardon. Godolphin 
 and O'Hagan then rode back together as far as Toker, five miles 
 from Dungannon, where they met Tyrone and Garrett Moore. 
 The whole party then turned their horses' heads in the direc- 
 tion of Mellifont, which was reached on March 30th. Here 
 Tyrone knelt for an hour before Mount joy, reciting his sub- 
 mission with all the moving eloquence of which he was such a 
 master. Four days later the party rode to Drogheda, and 
 the following day went on to Dublin, where Tyrone for the 
 first time learnt of the death of the Queen. On receipt of the 
 news, he burst into loud and prolonged weeping, as he declared 
 " for tender sorrow at the loss of his Sovereign Mistress " (who 
 had been hunting him for ten years), but more probably owing 
 to the reflection that he had wasted his submission. 
 
 On April 8th the unfortunate Earl had once more to take to 
 his knees, and go through the whole performance of submission 
 again, this time in the presence of the Deputy and Privy 
 Council. On the bare face of things Tyrone's treatment was 
 better than he deserved, or even had any right to expect, for 
 he was unconditionally restored to all his old lands, except 
 those reserved for Tirlough McHenry and Sir Henry Oge in 
 County Armagh. As a melancholy fact, however, the nominal 
 restoration of his lands was a barren concession. The only 
 lands which had been spared from devastation were those 
 which were excluded from his grant and given to his half- 
 brother and his son-in-law. In Down and Antrim, and, in a 
 lesser degree, in east Tyrone, grim famine had laid the land bare. 
 Those who had the means to leave the country had migrated 
 to the Pale ;* those who had not, starved. Fynes Moryson 
 recounts two horrible incidents. Brian McArt, the landless 
 brigand of east Ulster, having established himself in Killultagh 
 with five hundred ravenous and piratical followers, who devoured 
 the whole country, it became a public duty to dislodge him. 
 Accordingly, early in March, 1603, Sir Arthur Chichester and 
 Sir Richard Moryson undertook an expedition which had the 
 desired effect of driving Brian and his band of brigands out of 
 the country. On their return from this expedition, the two 
 * Sir John Davies to Cecil, April 19th, 1604.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 331 
 
 leaders saw three children by the roadside eating the dead 
 
 body of their mother, which they were roasting before a slow 
 
 fire.* People lay dead in the ditches with their mouths green 
 
 with the herbs they had tried to live on. In Magennis's 
 
 country some old women were in the habit of keeping them- 
 
 selves in food by lighting a big fire in a field, to which children 
 
 were attracted by the light and warmth ; the children were 
 
 killed and eaten. One big girl managed to break away and 
 
 give information, acting on which, Captain Trevor rode out 
 
 from Newry and found the bones and skulls of the children. 
 
 The old women were arrested and executed, f It will be noticed 
 
 that both these tragic incidents occurred in County Down, or 
 
 in the southern extremity of Antrim. J The scope of the actual 
 
 famine as to which these two cases furnish such a horrible 
 
 illustration was, in fact, limited to the northern half of Down 
 
 and the southern half of Antrim, or, in other words, to the 
 
 district over which Chichester's devastating arm could most 
 
 easily extend. Here the policy of indiscriminate extermination 
 
 had been given a full and successful trial, the evidence of 
 
 which remains to the present day in the shape of the almost 
 
 exclusively British population by which those parts are now 
 
 inhabited. Mount joy had destroyed all food products in the 
 
 Dungannon district, but he had then neutralized the effect of 
 
 his work by transporting all the Dungannon natives to the 
 
 land of plenty south of the Blackwater. The effect of this 
 
 move was to make the little county of Armagh the most 
 
 thickly populated district in Ireland. Much tjiat is very 
 
 foolish and exaggerated has been written as to the extent of 
 
 the famine of 1603. All Irish writers, and many English ones, 
 
 depict Mountjoy and Chichester as inhuman monsters who 
 
 almost depopulated Ulster by means of an artificially produced 
 
 famine. It is not to be denied that at the end of a ten-year 
 
 rebellion, recourse was had to this method of warfare as the 
 
 only means of bringing about peace. The devastation of an 
 
 enemy's country was at the time universally recognized as a 
 
 legitimate method of warfare. It was extensively practised 
 
 on the Continent, and was invariably used by the Irish chiefs 
 
 in their inter-tribal disputes. Nor can it be urged that even 
 
 in twentieth-century warfare, similar means of arriving at 
 
 * Fynes Moryson. f 
 
 $ Killultagh was not reckoned as belonging to either Down or Antrim.
 
 332 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 victory are not made use of by the most highly civilized nations. 
 To hold up Mountjoy and Chichester to special odium for 
 having used a recognized weapon against the Irish rebels is 
 perhaps within the rights of inflammatory patriotism ; but, 
 when sympathy is wooed by the picture of a depopulated 
 Ulster, it is time to leave the sphere of fiction for that of fact. 
 In April, 1609 i.e., six years after the worst period of the 
 famine Sir Robert Jacobs, Solicitor-General, in furnishing 
 returns for Plantation purposes, estimated that there were 
 4,000 native Irish righting men in Armagh, 6,000 in Tyrone 
 and Coleraine, 6,000 in Donegal, and 3,000 each in Monaghan. 
 Cavan and Fermanagh.* Of Down and Antrim he makes 
 no mention, as these two counties were not included in the 
 Plantation scheme. In modern calculations it is reckoned 
 that fighting men may be taken to represent ten per cent, of 
 the total population, so that it is evident that outside of 
 Down and Antrim the 1603 famine existed only in patriotic 
 imagination. On the other hand, it must in common justice 
 be recorded that, from the moment of Tyrone's submission, 
 both Mountjoy and Chichester behaved with the utmost friend- 
 liness toward the native population. Mountjoy took great 
 pains to transport the inhabitants from the desolated places 
 of south-east Tyrone to the more fruitful lands of Armagh, while 
 Chichester did his utmost to get the chiefs to relinquish their 
 old arbitrary exactions and establish their tenants as free- 
 holders with fixed rents, but with no success. 
 
 In May, 1603, Mountjoy, in consideration of his complete 
 suppression of Tyrone's rebellion, was promoted to the rank 
 of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, the outstanding advantage of 
 which title to the holder was that it permitted him to leave 
 Ireland and appoint a temporary Deputy in his place. Mount- 
 joy appointed Sir George Carey, and, taking immediate advan- 
 tage of his new privilege, he sailed with the Earl of Tyrone 
 and Rory O'Donnell in the Tramontana, and landed at Beau- 
 maris towards the end of the month. The three then rode up 
 to London together, Tyrone being freely pelted on the journey 
 with mud and stones by the Welsh women who had lost hus- 
 bands or sons in the Irish wars. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers, April, 1609. In this connection it is also to be noted 
 that in 1610 Chichester wrote to Cecil complaining that " the country to be 
 planted is full of people."
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 838 
 
 In London Tyrone's pardon and the restoration of his lands 
 was duly confirmed by James I. Rory O'Donnell was, on 
 Mountjoy's recommendation, created Earl of Tyrconnell, and 
 the Lord-Lieutenant was sent back to supervise the redistri- 
 bution of Ulster among the more deserving of the native chiefs. 
 It could hardly be argued that Tyrone ranked among these, 
 but, notwithstanding, the counties of Tyrone and Coleraine 
 were restored to him, County Armagh was divided up between 
 the descendants of Shane O'Neil, Tirlough McHenry and 
 O'Hanlon, and Fermanagh was given in equal parts to Connor 
 Roe Maguire and Cuconnaught Maguire. Chichester's appor- 
 tionment of Antrim and Down has already been dealt with. 
 The Lord-Lieutenant's chief difficulty, prior to his visit to 
 London, had been over the question of Donegal, the chiefry of 
 which had been left vacant by the flight of Hugh Roe. In this 
 matter he was, strange to say, governed less by Docwra's 
 advice than by other considerations.* However, even Docwra 
 himself, it must be owned, was not a little puzzled as to the 
 proper course to pursue in all the circumstances. The two 
 obvious claimants were Neil Garv and Hugh Roe's younger 
 brother Rory. On the face of things, the former's claims were 
 incomparably the stronger of the two, as from the start he had 
 consistently been opposed to the combination of the three rebel 
 Hughs. Neil Garv also put forward the contention that Docwra 
 had unconditionally guaranteed him the chiefry of Donegal 
 in return for his services against the rebels. This contention 
 was not admitted by Docwra, who maintained that the promise 
 was only conditional. Even the disputed point, however, was 
 an argument in Neil Garv's favour. It is only fair to Mountjoy 
 and Docwra to admit that they appear to have given their 
 most earnest attention to the problem, and the fact that the 
 ultimate decision was a wrong one was the fault of the former 
 rather than of the latter. He was guilty of the common error 
 of assuming that because Rory was so far without any definite 
 black mark against his name, he could not possibly be so 
 undesirable a character as Neil Garv. Only too late did he 
 discover his mistake. Docwra was under no such delusion. 
 To his mind the gamble appeared more dangerous than the 
 acceptance of imperfections which were known and limited. 
 These imperfections he schedules very judicially for the informa- 
 
 * Sn- N.'il Ciirv l. Sitli-ljury, May Mill, 1610.
 
 334 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 tion and guidance of Mount joy. He first of all recites Neil 
 Gary's good points as follows : " His first coming without com- 
 pulsion and bringing us to Lifford ; his services many times 
 commendably performed in his own person ; the furtherance 
 he gave us for planting at Donegal ; the help he gave our men 
 in their greatest wants when O'Donnell besieged them in 
 Donegal Castle ; his loss of his brother in that service ; the 
 trial of his fidelity in standing firm in so dangerous a time ; 
 and, lastly, the goods he forsook of his own to serve the Queen 
 for half-pay, are arguments neither untruly gathered nor 
 unjustly lodged to make much in his favour. On the other 
 side, his extreme pride, ambition and insatiable covetousness ; 
 his want of knowledge when he is well dealt with ; his impor- 
 tunity in all things right or wrong ; his continual begging and 
 unprofitable wasting of whatsoever he gets ; his aptness to 
 desperate and unspeakable discontent for trifles of no worth ; 
 his facility to be misliked by men of best quality, and his 
 underhand juggling with the enemy he is truly to be charged 
 with."* All the above charges were doubtless true enough, 
 but none of them was of a criminal character, nor, indeed, 
 such as might not be reasonably expected in any competitor 
 for the coveted position, considering the material from which 
 they had to be drawn. 
 
 While the question of the O'Donnell succession was still 
 in abeyance, Neil Garv very foolishly prejudiced his own 
 chances by two most ill-considered acts. The first of these 
 was the premature proclamation of himself as O'Donnell, 
 while the matter was, so to speak, still sub judice. This he did 
 in direct contravention of Docwra's express instructions, and 
 with the natural result that the indignant Rory was at once 
 (literally) up in arms. That Rory was the popular favourite 
 at the moment is made clear by the fact that Neil Garv could 
 make no effective show against him in the field, and was driven 
 to fall back on Docwra and to plead his protection. Docwra 
 readily responded to this appeal by admitting Neil Garv within 
 the precincts of Derry, and he then wrote to Mount joy asking 
 what he should do with his guest. Mountjoy replied that Neil 
 Garv had acted in a rebellious and unconstitutional manner, 
 and must be placed in confinement. From such a direct order 
 there was no escape, but Docwra, who still had a very kindly 
 
 * Docwra to Mountjoy, Jan. 4th, 1602.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 335 
 
 feeling for his late ally, made the confinement as easy as 
 possible by placing Neil Garv on parole and allowing him 
 liberty to walk about the town as he pleased. Unfortunately, 
 Neil Garv took advantage of this privilege, and, having arranged 
 for a horse to be brought to one of the gates, jumped on to its 
 back and galloped off.* 
 
 This last foolish and indefensible act furnished the one excuse 
 for which the Lord-Lieutenant Was looking. How he might 
 have acted otherwise we do not know. As things were he 
 made no further pretence of hesitation, but sending for Rory 
 O'Donnell to Dublin took him with him to London, as already 
 described, and there recommended him for the chiefry of 
 Donegal and the title of Earl of Tyrconnell. 
 
 Neil Garv's recent act of bad faith, coupled with the palpable 
 flaws in his character, were Mount joy's excuses for a line of 
 action which was otherwise very hard to justify. There are 
 strong reasons, however, for supposing that the reasons osten- 
 sibly waved on the surface were by no means those mainly 
 responsible for Neil Garv's rejection, and this was certainly 
 the unsuccessful candidate's own opinion. It is a remarkable 
 fact that, from the first moment of personal contact between 
 Mount joy and Tyrone, the Lord-Lieutenant seems to have 
 come under the hypnotic influence which Tyrone exercised on 
 all those who came within range of his persuasive powers. Up 
 to the date of Tyrone's submission Mount joy, in obedience to 
 Elizabeth's most stringent orders, had resolutely declined to 
 meet the Earl. Tyrone's submission, however, necessitated a 
 meeting, and though we know nothing of what actually tran- 
 spired at that and subsequent meetings beyond the data offi 
 cially published, it is impossible not to be struck by the 
 astonishing change in Mountjoy's attitude from that date on. 
 Prior to his first meeting with Tyrone at Mellifont he had been 
 as implacable an enemy to the rebel Earl as the most exacting 
 English monarch could have desired. He relentlessly hunted 
 him from one refuge to another. He established such a chain 
 of forts across the exits and entrances to his territory as to 
 banish all possibility of military combination. These measures 
 succeeded as they would have succeeded had any previous 
 Deputy had the honesty and resolution to have adopted them. 
 Tyrone's rebellion crumbled before such honesty of purpose 
 
 * Docwra Narration.
 
 336 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 as it was bound to crumble, and as it would have crumbled 
 had Lord Burgh lived. Tyrone admitted himself a beaten 
 man and cried for mercy. Then came the meeting between 
 conqueror and conquered, and, from that moment on, Mount joy 
 was a changed man. War was over, but the question of 
 Tyrone's landed and political interests still occupied a front 
 place in the Government programme, and it was in the settle- 
 ment of these important points that Mountjoy's sudden and 
 unaccountable bias made itself apparent. In every matter 
 in dispute between Tyrone and the Government, or between 
 Tyrone and the neighbouring chiefs, and even between Tyrone 
 and Docwra, he sided with the late rebel. The recommenda- 
 tions of his old ally Docwra were coldly brushed aside. Even 
 his honourable guarantees, given in perfect good faith, were 
 treated as so much waste paper, if they happened in any way 
 to clash with Tyrone's interests. Docwra' s summing up of the 
 Neil Garv position was a fair one. It furnishes evidence of 
 careful thought and of an impartial judgment, and, on the lead 
 which it gives, a jury of present-day readers would find in 
 favour of the petitioner. The services which Neil Garv had 
 rendered were substantial and genuine, while his shortcomings 
 were those of the native temperament, and were reasonably 
 to be looked for in any rival competitor. There was then, 
 however, as there always has been, in the English Government 
 of Ireland, the fatal tendency to attempt the propitiation of 
 its enemies at the expense of its proved friends. This despicable 
 policy has, where the Irish are concerned, consistently tailed 
 of its intended effect, and never has this been more strikingly 
 the case than during the last few years of Mountjoy's administra- 
 tion. In spite of Docwra' s earnest representations, the claims 
 of the chiefs who had stood by Elizabeth in her long-drawn-out 
 conflict with Tyrone were pushed into the background, while 
 the benefits which should have been theirs were showered upon 
 the man who was responsible for ten years of a bloody and 
 devastating rebellion. The results were the eternal and 
 unvarying results. The loyal chiefs were converted from 
 potential friends into bitter and resentful foes, while Tyrone 
 and Tyrconnell at once took advantage of the Government's 
 generous pardon to start laying the seeds of a fresh rebellion. 
 
 We are now dealing, however, with the question of Neil 
 Garv. Neil Garv was Tyrone's bitter enemy. Not only had
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 337 
 
 he been a contributory factor to the establishment of the Derry 
 settlement which had proved the first and the last nail in the 
 coffin of the rebellion, but had he not also chased the Earl for 
 six miles at the point of a lance while pelting his back with 
 insulting taunts ? Tyrone's antagonism to Neil Garv, however, 
 was actuated not only by hate, but by the far more powerful 
 motive of fear. He foresaw in Calvagh's grandson a rival in 
 the north who might, under certain conditions, very possibly 
 overthrow the dynasty of Con Bacagh. He knew Neil Garv 
 to be as ambitious as he was energetic. Ever since the death 
 of Sir Art O'Neil he had been paying assiduous court to 
 that bibulous knight's widow, not so much from admiration 
 of her charms as because her sixteen-year-old son Tirlough 
 was generally looked upon as the coming O'Neil.* He was 
 generally popular with all the country people, and apparently 
 had many more personal points in his favour than had any of 
 Tyrone's sons. The lady had so far shown no disposition to 
 accept Neil Garv's overtures, being no doubt disposed to wait 
 and see him formally established as the O'Donnell before irre- 
 trievably linking her fortunes with his. Tyrone foresaw very 
 clearly the possibilities behind the situation, and all his influence 
 with Mountjoy was exerted to prevent Neil Garv from attaining 
 a position which would at once have secured him the hand ot 
 Tirlough O'Neil's mother, and have given him an altogether 
 too dangerous power in the north-west. 
 
 Rory O'Donnell, on the other hand, had not only been a 
 probationary rebel himself, but was a brother of Tyrone's 
 consistent partner throughout the late rebellion. There is no 
 actual evidence to prove that it was in order to gratify Tyrone 
 that Mountjoy gave the uncertificated Rory^ preference over 
 so well-proved a man as Neil Garv, but probability points very 
 strongly in that direction ; for it is incontestable that O'Cahan's 
 and O'Dogherty's interests and Docwra's 'honour were all 
 sacrificed to the new-born desire to placate the Earl of Tyrone. | 
 
 The moral is not to be lightly scanned. Tyrone and Tyr- 
 connell showed their gratitude to their benefactor by at once 
 setting to work to hatch a new rebellion, while the once-friendly 
 Neil Garv, Donnell O'Cahan and Cahir O'Dogherty were driven 
 by disgust into an unnecessary rebellion of their <>\vn. 
 
 * Dorxvra Narration. 
 
 j- Sri- NVil Garv to SalM.ury. .May itolli. It.io. 
 
 22
 
 338 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 The fate of Inishowen had always of necessity been very 
 closely bound up in that of Donegal as a whole, and, in any settle- 
 ment of the Donegal chiefry claim, the position of Inishowen 
 called for very clear definition. Mount joy fully realized this, 
 and when Rory was made Earl of Tyrconnell and lord of 
 Donegal, Cahir O'Dogherty was at the same time established 
 as independent lord of Inishowen, with certain reservations of 
 which more hereafter. 
 
 Neil Garv's position, in view of his late act of bad faith, was 
 left for the time being in a more or less nebulous state, and was 
 not finally settled till September, 1605, when Chichester (then 
 Deputy) made a tour of the north adjusting various land claims. 
 He then apportioned Sir Neil thirteen thousand acres in the 
 Finn Valley, excluding Lifford itself, an arrangement which, 
 as may be supposed, left a man of Neil Garv's grasping dis- 
 position very far from satisfied, and from that time on Calvagh's 
 grandson was in a chronic state of discontent and semi-mutiny. 
 When O'Dogherty's rebellion broke out in 1608, Neil Garv 
 remained nominally on the side of the Government ; but it was 
 afterwards proved, by the evidence of a number of the Donegal 
 Irish, that Neil Garv was in reality the main instigator of the 
 rebellion, and that young Cahir O'Dogherty Was merely his tool. 
 The evidence made it quite clear that Neil Garv's object in 
 encouraging O'Dogherty to rebel was to procure the latter' s 
 downfall, so that he himself might get possession of the lands 
 of Inishowen. The proofs against him were so overwhelming 
 and exposed such unsuspected depths of treachery, that he was 
 arrested and confined in the Tower, where he remained till his 
 death in 1626. 
 
 We are dealing now, however, with Chichester' s adjustment 
 of land claims in 1605, three years before the date of 
 O'Dogherty's ill-fated rebellion. At the same time that Neil 
 Garv was granted the Finn Valley lands, Tirlough McArt O'Neil 
 was given the lordship of all that part of Tyrone which lies 
 between the rivers Finn and Derg. This arrangement left young 
 Tirlough very dissatisfied indeed, for Docwra had originally 
 promised him the two Castles of Newtown and Dungiven, with 
 all the lands between. The change of programme, though 
 actually carried out by Chichester, was a legacy from Mount joy, 
 who as in other cases refused to ratify Docwra' s guarantee, 
 the excuse assigned being that the King had decreed that
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 889 
 
 Tyrone was to be restored to all his lands with certain specified 
 exceptions, and that Newtown and Dungiven were not among 
 those exceptions. It must be recorded to Chichester's credit 
 that, when he became Deputy, he did his best to carry out the 
 undertaking which Docwra had given some years before. In 
 1608 Tirlough was given a grant of Newtown, to which two 
 years later was added the town of Strabane,* the favourite 
 residence of his grandfather. Later on, however, for the pur- 
 poses of the Plantation, it was found necessary to remove 
 Tirlough Me Art from this part of the world, and he was allotted 
 three thousand acres at Dungannon, his three brothers Neil, 
 Con and Brian being at the same time granted five hundred 
 acres apiece in the same district, f In 1615 Tirlough was a 
 captain and a representative man in the county, but as a land- 
 lord he left much to be desired, for in 1619 Pynnar, in making 
 his Survey, found that he had done practically no work or 
 building on his estate, nor granted leases to any of his tenants, 
 all of whom, we are told, continued to plough by the tail in the 
 Irish fashion. J In the great rising of 1641 Tirlough McArt 
 appears in a more or less neutral capacity, the moderation of his 
 attitude being mainly due to his inherent hatred and jealousy 
 of both Sir Phelim O'Neil and Owen Roe, the former representing 
 the line of Shane O'Neil and the latter that of Hugh Earl of 
 Tyrone. 
 
 Another sorely dissatisfied man at the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century was Sir Cahir O'Dogherty. His grievance was 
 over the matter of Inch Island. This island in Lough Swilly, 
 now joined to the mainland, had at all times been a recognized 
 part of Inishowen. It contains some three thousand acres of ex- 
 cellent land. Shortly before Tyrone's submission, this desirable 
 possession was quite unjustifiably, in view of O'Dogherty' s 
 attitude during the rebellion leased to Sir Ralph Bingley for 
 twenty-one years. The transaction aroused the just indignation 
 of Sir Henry Docwra, who remonstrated very warmly with the 
 Lord-Lieutenant, and urged the immediate restoration of the 
 island to its rightful owner. The Lord-Lieutenant's reply was 
 that the transaction was completed and could not be undone. 
 
 * Cal. State Papers: James, 161O-733. 
 t Cal. State Papers: James, 10KW08. 
 J Lodge's " Desiderata Curiosta." 
 Cal. State Papers : James, 1008-032. 
 
 22*
 
 340 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 In this extremity O'Dogherty undertook a journey to London 
 in the late summer of 1603, where he personally laid his griev- 
 ance before the King. So successfully did he plead his case 
 that James wrote to his Lord-Lieutenant explicit instructions 
 that O'Dogherty was to be restored to all his lands except 
 Culmore Fort (as to which he was indifferent), and was for the 
 future to be independent of the rule of Tyrconnell.* In spite 
 of having gained his suit, O'Dogherty did not regain his island, 
 for despite the King's command, and presumably with the 
 connivance of Mountjoy, Bingley retained his possession of Inch 
 Island. Mountjoy, by that time Earl of Devonshire, shortly 
 afterwards died, and so escaped the King's displeasure. It is 
 quite certain, however, that James knew that his orders had 
 been disregarded, for on April 8th, 1 608, he again wrote repeat- 
 ing his former command that Inch Island was to be restored to 
 O'Dogherty. It is uncertain whether this order had been com- 
 municated to O'Dogherty before he went into rebellion. The 
 probability is that it had not, for it could hardly have reached 
 Derry before the end of April, and by that time O'Dogherty 's 
 fatal step had been taken, and his rights to Inch Island had for 
 ever been forfeited, f 
 
 The worst case of all was that of O'Cahan. Docwra, in 
 accepting the submission of this chief, had given an under- 
 taking that after the war Coleraine should be independent of 
 the overlordship of Tyrone. It was a proper and reasonable 
 undertaking to give, in view of the fact that the presumptive 
 ovejlord had been in rebellion for ten years, and at the moment 
 was a proclaimed traitor with a price on his head. It is also 
 very clear that O'Cahan's only reason for siding with the English 
 was in order to shake off Tyrone's overlordship. Docwra's 
 verbal guarantee in this matter was confirmed in writing by 
 Mountjoy. After Tyrone's submission, however, the Lord- 
 Lieutenant repudiated the arrangement entered into with 
 O'Cahan on the same old plea that the King's commands were 
 that Tyrone was to be reinstated in all his former possessions. 
 On the receipt of the news, Docwra's indignation was such that 
 he made a special journey to Dungannon, where he fought 
 O'Cahan's case in the presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, Tyrone 
 
 * King to Devonsliire, Sept. 4th, 1603. 
 
 f As late as 1613 Sir Ralph Bingley had estates close to if not actually in 
 Inch Island. See Carew MSS., 1613-141.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 341 
 
 himself and Tyrone's eldest son, Hugh Baron of Dungannon. 
 He urged the claims of common justice, and backed these by 
 reminding the Lord-Lieutenant of his own written promise. 
 Nothing, however, could shake Devonshire's determination, 
 as to which he disclaimed all responsibility by invariably 
 falling back on the excuse of the Royal commands. Docwra's 
 disgust found its expression in some very plain speaking, and 
 he and the Lord-Lieutenant finally parted on the worst of 
 terms. Thoroughly dejected with his failure, Docwra returned 
 to Derry in company with the Baron of Dungannon and im- 
 parted the bad news to O'Cahan ; whereupon the latter shook 
 hands warmly with the son of the man who had defrauded him 
 of his rights, cursed the unsuccessful advocate of his cause, 
 and turned his .back for ever on Docwra and Derry. The 
 Baron of Dungannon crossed the water into Coleraine with 
 him.* 
 
 Although the Lord-Lieutenant's decision had been adverse 
 to O'Cahan, the latter had no intention of accepting it as final, 
 or of sitting down tamely under a burden which was not only 
 highly distasteful in itself, but from which he had at one time 
 been absolved by the verbal promise of the Governor of Derry 
 and the written promise of the Lord-Lieutenant. As a mark 
 of his contempt for the whole arrangement, and of his defiance 
 of the overlord to whom he had been subjected, he turned off 
 Tyrone's illegitimate daughter, and added insult to this injury 
 by declaring that she never had been his wife as he was already 
 married when she came to trim. To give still greater weight 
 to this statement, he reinstated the original lady at his side. 
 Tyrone's rejoinder was to raid Coleraine and carry off as many 
 of O'Cahan's cattle as he could collect, as the equivalent of the 
 marriage portion which O'Cahan had received with his daughter. 
 This was Tyrone's first raid since his submission, and the 
 atavistic tendencies which it gave evidence of were contem- 
 plated with uneasiness in official circles. Tyrone was ordered 
 to return the cattle. He replied by submitting a counter- 
 proposition in May, 1607, which was to the effect that all the 
 points in dispute between him and O'Cahan should be decided 
 by law. O'Cahan agreed to this, and his consent was hailed 
 as a most promising sign of the advancing civilization of the 
 native chiefs. The law of the land, however, upon investiga- 
 
 * Docwra Narration,
 
 *42 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 tion, found itself powerless to deal with the matter in the 
 absence of any title deeds, contracts, or, indeed, documentary 
 evidence of any sort. In this quandary the King, in July of 
 the same year, commanded that Tyrone and O'Cahan should 
 be sent over to London to accept his arbitration in the matter.* 
 It is unfortunate that there is no evidence as to the exact nature 
 of the King's judgment, for it would be of interest in connection 
 with the subsequent charges levelled against O'Cahan. To 
 O'Cahan himself, at the time, the judgment was of no practical 
 interest or value, for Tyrone had hardly returned from his 
 visit to London before he fled the country for ever. 
 
 The favourable reception of TyrconnelPs and O'Dogherty's 
 suits in London encouraged Docwra to follow their example, 
 and make a personal appeal at Court in the matter of his own 
 Ulster interests. His, main petition was in the matter of the 
 Foyle salmon fishery, over which he claimed to have prescrip- 
 tive rights tacitly sanctioned by the late Queen. In this 
 matter Devonshire's stubborn hostility to his recent colleague 
 had been very pointed, and he had resolutely refused to set his 
 seal to the conveyance of the rights to Docwra, once more 
 putting forward as his reason that, in conformity with the King's 
 decree, the fishing rights had to revert to the Earl of Tyrone. 
 Docwra therefore went to London, but he had his journey for 
 nothing, for in this case the King confirmed the Lord-Lieu- 
 tenant's ruling, judging, no doubt after the fashion of people 
 with a vicarious knowledge only of Ireland that he had more 
 to gain by propitiating his enemies than by rewarding his friends. 
 
 In some depression of spirits at his reverse, Docwra set out 
 on his return journey to Derry. While off the east coast of 
 Ulster, strong winds drove him into Carrickfergus, where, to his 
 intense surprise, Chichester showed him the copy of a proclama- 
 tion, recently published throughout the north, rescinding 
 Docwra's commission as Governor of Derry. f In spite of this 
 painful proof of the Lord-Lieutenant's sustained animosity, he 
 completed his journey to the Foyle, where he found that the 
 news of his downfall had preceded him and was in everybody's 
 mouth. Very bitter must have been the feelings of the late 
 Governor at this unlooked-for reward for his services. Those, 
 he tells us, who had formerly flattered and cringed to him, now 
 
 * King to Chichester, July 16th, 1607, 
 j- Docwra Narration.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 348 
 
 flaunted him in the highway with open insults.* Chichester, 
 who was by this time Lord Justice of Ireland and Deputy- 
 elect, sympathized most cordially with the trials of his late 
 colleague, and encouraged him by every means not to give up 
 a struggle in which he had such obvious justice on his side. H 
 himself exercised all the influence that he could bring to bear 
 on his behalf, and with such good results that on February 8th, 
 1604, Docwra had the satisfaction of receiving a Royal warrant 
 for the incorporation of Derry as a city, of which he himself was 
 nominated Governor for life. Even this very proper recog- 
 nition of his signal services to his country did not succeed in 
 making life on the Foyle any longer endurable to Docwra. 
 All his old associates in arms among the native Irish were still 
 bitterly discontented with the extent of the lands meted out 
 to them, and they not unnaturally held Docwra responsible 
 for the blasting of their more sanguine expectations. It 
 mattered nothing that he had done his utmost in their interests. 
 Failure is an offence for which there is neither pity nor forgive- 
 ness, and he had failed. He wearied of the place and of the 
 hopeless task of trying to gauge the point of view of those with 
 whom he was called upon to deal, and early in 1606 he disposed 
 of his house and lands to Mr. George Paulet and returned to 
 England. Three years later he came back to Ireland as Trea- 
 surer at Wars, an office which he was accused by Sir John 
 Bingley (who had not forgiven Docwra's opposition to his 
 brother's annexation of Inch Island) of abusing. The charge, 
 however, was frivolous and easily disproved, and Docwra 
 came out of the ordeal without a stain on his character. He 
 served long and died poor," was the Earl of Cork's tribute to his 
 memory, after his death in 1631. f 
 
 * Docwra Narration, f Earl of Cork to Lord Dorchester, June 28th, 1681 .
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 Tyrone takes up residence in Drogheda He hangs a number of his old associates 
 His fallen state He fails to get his tenants to return to him The King's 
 considerate policy towards the native peasantry Dissatisfaction of the 
 chiefs Opening of a new era of justice for the lower orders Alarm of 
 Tyrone and Tyrconnell Rumours of a fresh conspiracy- Henry O'Neil 
 and Henry O'Hagan in Spain Lady Tyrone is interviewed by Caullicld 
 Anonymous letter to Sir William Usher Tyrone takes leave of the Moores 
 His ride to Rathmullen Flight of the Earls Untimely deaths of many 
 members of the party Tyrone's character Opinion of the Roman Catholic 
 lords of the Pale His innumerable daughters Extinction of the main 
 line of O'Neil. 
 
 r I ^YRONE, after his visit to England, did not return to his 
 old haunts at Dungannon, but took up his residence in 
 Drogheda, where, in very straitened circumstances, he lived 
 for a time an obscure and uneventful life.* To relieve the 
 monotony of his existence, he occasionally got on his horse and 
 rode to the borders of his old country, where he did his best 
 to offer practical proof of his change of sides by hanging a 
 number of people whose submission was rather later than his 
 own, included among whom was one of his own nephews, f In 
 the course of this display of zeal, he is reported to have hanged 
 nineteen persons of good quality, and many others of humbler 
 station, between the dates of his submission and his flight. J 
 His choice of Drogheda as a place of residence was no doubt 
 to some extent dictated by its proximity to his old friends, 
 the Moores of Mellifont (with whom his three-year-old son 
 Shane was at the time being fostered), coupled with the know- 
 ledge that his own country was no longer productive of the 
 good things that he so dearly loved. South-east Tyrone, Down 
 and Antrim were desolate and deserted. Most of the better- 
 class families, who had the means of moving, had migrated 
 
 * Sir John Davies to Cecil, April 19th, 1604. 
 f- Chichester to Cecil, June 8th, 1004. 
 J Cal. State Papers : James, 517. 
 
 344
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 345 
 
 further south to where there was food in plenty. Tyrone, w< 
 are told, did his utmost to get his old tenants to return ; but 
 these, having once tasted the joys of freedom from his extreme 
 exactions, declared that they would sooner be strangled."* 
 The peasants, in fact, for the first time in the history of 
 Ireland, were beginning to experience the advantages of being 
 scheduled as human beings, instead of as mere chattels, and 
 they were by no means eager to revert to the old order of 
 things. James I.'s policy, weak and ill-advised as it may 
 justly be considered in the matter of the chief rebels, was from 
 the first humane and considerate towards those of lower degree. 
 Even the most persistent of the minor rebel chiefs, such as 
 Cormac McBaron, Brian McHugh Oge, Patrick McArt Moyle, 
 and Ever McCooley were nominally restored to their lands, 
 but shorn of a certain number of their old seigniority rights. 
 No longer were they free to exact what they could from their 
 unhappy serfs, for these were accorded the privilege of appeal 
 to properly constituted courts. Common justice and redress 
 from tyranny became open to all. Sir Edward Pelham records 
 that after he had been dispensing justice in Donegal, the people 
 crowded round and blessed him as an angel sent from Heaven, 
 praying him on their knees to come back again and once more 
 adjust their wrongs, f Nor was James merely content with 
 curbing the excesses and depredations of the native chiefs. The 
 same wholesome restrictions were imposed on his own soldiery. 
 The excellence of his intentions in this direction is made very 
 clear in a letter which he wrote in April, 1605, to Chichester, 
 at that time Deputy, embodying sentiments of which no trace 
 is to be found in the caustic letters of the dead Queen. The 
 King charged Chichester to " use all his endeavours to ease 
 the people, as much as may be, of the burden or oppression of 
 the soldiery, in order that they may perceive that those who 
 are maintained in pay shall serve rather for necessity in striving 
 to preserve the good subject than to annoy any." 
 
 In accordance with these admirable instructions, Chiclustir 
 issued proclamations throughout the country embodying the 
 benevolent intentions of the King. These had their immediate 
 effect. On May 19th Captain Phillips wrote to Salisbury, 
 from Castle Toome, to the effect that he had published the 
 
 * Sir .John Davk'h to Cecil, April IWth, 100 1. 
 t Sir John Davies to Cecil, Dec. 1st, 1003.
 
 346 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 King's proclamation throughout County Antrim. " This," 
 he wrote, " has had such an impression in them (the Irish) that 
 they will not now endure any more wrongs from their chieftains ; 
 but they immediately seek for redress, which formerly they 
 durst never do, but were as bondsmen. They now begin to 
 have the feeling of His Majesty's laws. This abates the 
 superiority of their lords to their great grief ; for now they fall 
 from them and follow His Majesty's officers to crave justice 
 against their lords." 
 
 Such socialistic innovations were, as may well be understood, 
 exceeding distasteful to the chiefs, and to none more so than 
 to the Earl of Tyrone, who, though restored to his lands, found 
 much difficulty in extracting from men who had a tribunal of 
 appeal behind them anything approaching his one-time 
 enormous income. Herein lay the seed of a lurking discontent 
 a seed which, in Ireland, never fails to drop on a responsive 
 soil. Tyrone, who by his sustained rebellion and his intrigues 
 with Spain, had forfeited his head and all his lands a dozen 
 times over, began to consider himself an aggrieved person 
 because he was no longer as rich as he had been. His second son 
 Henry was already in Spain. Henry O'Hagan was sent after 
 him, on what secret mission no man knows, but certainly 
 neither for the good of his health, nor for the good of James 
 King of England. In March, 1606, it was given out all over 
 the north that the two Henrys would land in Ireland during 
 the summer at the head of four thousand Spaniards.* What 
 good such a force would have done Tyrone, had it come, it is 
 not easy to conceive, after the hopeless collapse of the Spanish- 
 Irish combination at Kinsale, but that both he and Tyrconnell 
 built great hopes on a second interference by Spain is tolerably 
 clear. 
 
 Rumours of a new conspiracy, in which Tyrone, Tyrconnell 
 and Lord Delvin were the principal movers, began to reach 
 the ears of the Government from many quarters. The talk was 
 of a general rising, the seizure of Dublin Castle, and the murder 
 of the Deputy, to be followed by the massacre of all English 
 on a given day. f Lady Tyrone was sounded on the subject. 
 She was known to hate her lord very acutely. In his drunken 
 moods he habitually ill-used her, and now that her political 
 
 * Chichester to Salisbury, April 4th, 1606. 
 t Cal. State Papers : James, 1613-732.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 847 
 
 importance was a thing of the past (for Magennis had long since 
 joined the English), he made no secret of his distaste for her. 
 At one time he had gone so far as to collect all the priests in the 
 district with a view to getting rid of her by some ecclesiastical 
 divorce process, but the lady, with some spirit, threatened 
 that if he did put her away, she would lay information against 
 him that would lose him his head in a very short time.* The 
 threat prevailed and the assembled priests dispersed to resume 
 their normal pursuits. While Lady Tyrone was still in the 
 communicative mood inspired by this incident, Sir Toby Caul- 
 field was sent to see what she had to say on the subject of the 
 Earl's treasonable schemes. Nothing very definite resulted 
 from this interview. The lady furnished a number of details 
 of a suspicious and damaging character, but nothing that was 
 sufficiently tangible to justify an arrest. 
 
 Further incriminating charges, however, were laid against 
 the Earl in an anonymous letter addressed to Sir William Usher, 
 the Clerk of the Council, which set forth in detail the particulars 
 of a plot entered into by Tyrone and Tyrconnell to assassinate 
 the Lord Deputy and Sir Oliver Lambert. Lord Delvin, who 
 was himself implicated in the conspiracy, afterwards admitted 
 that the question of Chichester's and Lambert's assassination 
 had been discussed between the two Earls, but that nothing 
 definite had been decided, j The anonymous letter in question 
 was accorded far more attention than such communications 
 usually deserve, and formed the subject of much serious debate 
 among the members of the Privy Council. Even with this 
 letter thrown in, the sum total of evidence from all sources fell 
 far short of providing a clear case for the prosecution. The 
 overcharged consciences of the Earls, however, clearly saw 
 phantom gallows in every cloud that blew across the land, for 
 to the intense surprise of everyone, including their close 
 associates and Tyrone's late Government accomplices they 
 made secret arrangements to fly the country. Tyrconnell and 
 young Cuconnaught Maguirc chartered a French ship, which 
 came round to Rathmullen in Lough Swilly at the end of 
 August, 1607. News of its arrival was sent to Tyrone, who, 
 on hearing that the eventful moment had arrived, paid a 
 flying visit to Mellifont, where he took a tearful farewell of 
 
 * Examination of Neil Gary : Cal. State Papers, Aug. 7th, 1600. 
 | Meejian's " Earls of Tyrone and TyrconneH."
 
 348 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 his friends the Moores.* He then made straight across country 
 for Rathrhullen, taking with him his Countess, not so much 
 from motives of love, but rather from fear lest, if left behind, 
 she should lodge incriminating evidence against him. On the 
 road Lady Tyrone grew very faint and weary with the Earl's hard 
 riding, which was like that of a demented man, and, while yet 
 far, far from their goal, she slipped from her horse with fatigue ; 
 whereupon Tyrone drew his sword and swore that he would hew 
 off her head if she did not recover herself and wear a more 
 cheerful countenance, f Eventually they reached Rathmullen, 
 having declined, with a suspicion which was not justified, 
 a hospitable invitation to dine with Sir Richard Hansard at 
 Lifford. From Lough Swilly the two Earls set sail for Nor- 
 mandy, in company with Cuconnaught Maguire, Henry 
 O'Hagan, Henry Hoveden, Owen McArt McBaron later on 
 to become celebrated as Owen Roe Caffar O'Donnell, a son 
 of Cormac McBaron, an infant son of Tyrconnell, and many 
 others of minor degree. Besides his Countess, Tyrone took 
 with him his two sons Shane and Brian (both under seven 
 years of age), but not Con, who was his youngest. This child 
 had been put out to foster somewhere in Tyrone, and though 
 Tyrone made eager search for him, he was unable to discover 
 his whereabouts and eventually sailed without him.J Con was 
 eventually taken charge of by Sir Toby Caulfield, who educated 
 him till he was fifteen, when he was sent to Eton. From Nor- 
 mandy the two Earls found their way to Flanders, and finally 
 reached Rome, where in July, 1616, Tyrone died, stone blind. 
 Never was there a more ill-fated flight than that of the Ulster 
 Earls. The hand of death seems to have pursued the whole 
 party from the moment of their sailing. Tyrconnell died within 
 a year of leaving Ireland. His brother Caffar only survived him 
 a few weeks. Tyrconnell's only son lived till 1642, and with 
 his death the main line of the O'Donnells became extinct. Cu- 
 connaught Maguire, another very young man, died at Genoa in 
 August, 1608, about the same time as Tyrconnell. || His brother 
 only lived till 1610, in which year Henry O'Hagan also died. 
 
 * Sir John Davies to Salisbury, Sept. 12th, 1607. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
 J Chichester to Privy Council, Sept. 7th, 1607. 
 
 Cal. State Papers : James, 1610-543. 
 
 || Meehairs " Jiarls."'
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTKK 349 
 
 Ol 1 Tyrone's sons, the eldest, Hugh Baron Dungannon, died in 
 Italy without issue. Henry, who had always been sickly, 
 survived his brother but a short time, and Brian was found 
 hanged in his room in Brussels with his hands tied behind his 
 back. 1 * Shane lived the longest, and finally died at Catalonia 
 in 1642, having for some years prior to his death assumed the 
 title of Earl of Tyrone. 
 
 The character of Hugh O'Neil, second Earl of Tyrone, is one 
 of extreme complexity and of considerable interest. Fynes 
 Moryson, who must have enjoyed many opportunities of seeing 
 him, describes him thus : " He was of mean stature, but of a 
 strong body, able to endure fatigue, watching and hard fare, 
 being withal industrious and active, valiant, affable, and apt 
 to manage great affairs, and of a high dissembling subtlety and 
 profound wit." There can be no doubt but that he was a man 
 of singularly engaging personality. Making all allowances 
 for the freedom with which, by means of his enormous income, 
 he was able to buy friendship, or at any rate good-will, the 
 universal favour with which he was regarded by all the English 
 with whom he came in contact, not excepting Mountjoy, bears 
 testimony to the remarkable charm of his presence and manner. 
 He was a man of a highly emotional temperament, and a very 
 small occasion was sufficient to move him to tears ; nor do we find 
 that, judged by the standard of the time, his instincts were 
 naturally cruel or bloodthirsty. On the contrary, he seems to 
 have avoided bloodshed on many occasions when circumstances 
 and the temper of the times would, in a great measure, have 
 excused it. His inclinations and abilities lay very pointedly 
 in the direction of diplomacy, and in modern times he would 
 probably have excelled as a foreign ambassador. Unfortunately, 
 the exigencies of the times demanded that he should be a 
 military leader, for which he was totally unfitted in every 
 respect. He was irresolute in command, and very timid per- 
 sonally in the hour of battle. 
 
 In private life he was totally devoid of any power of restraint 
 upon his inclinations, but in that respect it cannot be claimed 
 that he stood out conspicuously from his fellows. He treated 
 all his wives with callous cruelty. His fifth wife, Catherine 
 Magennis, complained bitterly of his continual drunkenness 
 and ill-usage. Before this complaint we hear nothing of drunken 
 
 * Median's "Hurls."
 
 850 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 habits in connection with the Earl's character, and it may well 
 be that the practice grew on him with advancing years. In 
 Normandy, however, we learn that both he and Tyrconnell 
 greatly offended the French by their drunken and riotous 
 mode of living. 
 
 Catherine Magennis was his fifth wife, but there is reason to 
 believe that she was not his last ; but that after his arrival in 
 Rome he contracted an alliance of some kind, regular or 
 irregular, with a daughter of Tyrconnell.* 
 
 The Roman Catholic lords of the Pale in 1600, at a time when 
 Tyrone was posing as a champion of the true faith, gave the 
 following unflattering description of their co-religionist : " For 
 of Tyrone you plainly know him to be in his own life insolent, 
 cruel and loathsome, enemy to all virtues and civility, defiled 
 with all sensuality, impieties and barbarities (which in his own 
 petty Government you may daily behold), where he strangled 
 with his own hands his own cousin-germane Hugh, and at 
 another time tortured his own natural brother Tirlough 
 McHenry."f 
 
 These charges were possibly unfounded, or at least exagger- 
 ated as, for instance, that of having hanged Hugh with his 
 own hands and were doubtless made in a sycophantic spirit 
 which sought the approval of the Queen, but that his morals 
 were a negligible quantity is established beyond doubt. In 1601 
 he was currently reported to be suffering from venereal disease. J 
 His supply of illegitimate children would appear to have 
 been inexhaustible. The amazing preponderance of daughters 
 among his and Tirlough Luineach's illegitimate children would 
 seem to suggest that many of the illegitimate sons of the 
 chiefs were not reared to maturity. Both Tyrone and Tirlough 
 Luineach could at any moment produce a marriageable 
 daughter, but of sons, other than legitimate, we hear very little. 
 Tirlough Luineach had two legitimate sons and one illegitimate 
 (Art), but a perfect emporium of daughters. Tyrone had four 
 legitimate and one base son, Con, but of daughters he had an 
 unfailing store. Margaret, the eldest, married Richard Butler, 
 afterwards Lord Mountgarret. Mary married Sir Ross McMahon 
 and afterwards Sir Brian McMahon. Alice married Sir Randall 
 
 * See Cal. State Papers : Charles, 1628-1197. 
 t Cal. State Papers, Vol. 207, Part VI.-141. 
 j Cal. State Papers, March, 1601.
 
 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 351 
 
 McSorley, and Sara married Sir Arthur Magennis. The latter, 
 we are told, was a very beautiful lady, who could drink beer 
 and usquebaugh with any man.* In this respect we are given 
 to understand that the fair Sara was no exception to the general 
 rule. " Men and women of every rank pour usquebaugh 
 down their throats by day and night," Sir Thomas Bodley tells 
 us, in his most amusing and instructive account of his visit 
 to Sir Arthur Magennis at Castle Wellan. 
 
 In addition to the above-named ladies we know that Tyrone 
 had daughters married to Sir Henry Oge, Sir James McDonnell f 
 (Angus's eldest son), Hugh Maguire, Henry McArt,J Sir James 
 McSorley, Sir Donnell O'Cahan and Hugh Roe O'Donnell. The 
 last two we know were illegitimate, and the same is probably true 
 of many, if not all, of the others. We have it on the authority 
 of a contemporary writer that the sixteenth-century Irish never 
 married except for political purposes. || Marriage was entered 
 into by the chiefs with a view to extending their power ; but 
 love-affairs were conducted on quite independent lines. With 
 the divorce process conveniently simple, no O'Neil was likely 
 to be in any way embarrassed by a superfluity of illegitimate 
 daughters, whom he could always marry off to neighbouring 
 chiefs and so extend his political connections. Illegitimate 
 sons, however, had no marketable value, and were more than 
 likely to prove troublesome, and even dangerous, adjuncts to 
 the chiefs who were responsible for their being. We therefore 
 hear very little of illegitimate sons, and it is a reasonable 
 assumption that, except in very special cases, these did not 
 survive infancy. 
 
 With the French ship that left Rathmullen for Normandy 
 went the last of the Earls of Tyrone. All the sons of the 
 second Earl died prematurely and without issue, with the 
 exception of Shane, who was reputed to have left a son Hugh. 
 This Hugh, however, makes no figure in history, and was at no 
 time a factor in the internal affairs of Ulster. In the great 
 
 * See Sir Thomas Bodley's visit to Lecale : " Ulster Journal of Archaeology." 
 t Capt. Phillips to Cecil, March llth, 1602. 
 $ Cal. State Papers, Vol. 19T-65. 
 
 Sir John Davies to Salisbury, Nov. 12th, 1808 ; and Sir Henry Bagenal 
 to Deputy, April 6th, 1597. 
 
 'I See Appendix A to Introduction Career MSS., 1589-1000.
 
 352 ELIZABETHAN ULSTER 
 
 rebellion of 1641 the only two claimants to the cl lie fry of O'Neil 
 were Sir Phclim O'Neil, a grandson of Sir Henry Oge, who was 
 himself a grandson of the great Shane, and Owen Roe O'Neil, 
 who was a nephew of Tyrone, though with several bars-sinister 
 in his escutcheon. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey.
 
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